


there's a moon in the sky (she calls me)

by heartshapedcandy



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9113236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcandy/pseuds/heartshapedcandy
Summary: Lena Luthor is caught up in a love triangle of her own devisingorThe one where Lena finds herself falling for both eager cub reporter Kara Danvers and the mysterious caped protector of National City





	1. Chapter 1

Supergirl comes at night. 

That’s what Lena notices first.

Her mother is trapped behind bars now, and though something suggests that the cage will not hold her long, her imprisonment has created this fragile, quiet lull. Lena sits for long hours at her desk and wonders how long the silence can last, history has taught her the impermanence of peace, as fleeting as loneliness is eternal. 

She thinks of childhood nights huddled in bedsheet-pitched tents, the flashlight glow her only solace. She would make creatures from the shadows for company, her new family sleeping deep beyond her bedroom walls. 

Supergirl comes on nights like these, when the pooled light of her floor lamp casts those same stark shadows against her office walls. They feel less like company now. 

Lena sees her silhouette first, a broad shouldered outline that flits into the corner of Lena’s vision, ephemeral and intangible. But when she turns, Supergirl is hovering just above her balcony, granite-solid and still, arms crossed across her chest. 

The second of these nighttime visits was after Lena’s mother’s arrest. She had thanked Lena for her part in her capture, voice soft, tired. Lena had wondered at the bow of her shoulders, the exhaustion that pulled a crease in her proud, high brow. Even a Titan such as Atlas bent under the weight of the world. Lena hopes that Supergirl has someone else to help her shoulder the burden. 

Lena steps toward the balcony now, pushing at the glass door and holding it open, though they both know Supergirl needs no invitation. All that power at her fingertips, and she holds it so hesitantly. 

Supergirl touches down lightly, the leather soles of her boots treading silent on the ground. She breezes past Lena quickly, moving to the center of the room before turning, hands settling at her hips. For all her posturing and confidence, Lena thinks there is something tentative in her hero-esque stance, a waver in her shining, gallant veneer. 

Lena lets the door fall shut behind her, sparing a few steps toward her desk, leaning lightly against the glossy frame. 

“Ms. Luthor,” Supergirl says, breaking the silence, ducking her head in a polite nod. She isn’t smiling, but there is something fond in the curve of her mouth, and Lena finds herself staring too long at the dimpled bow of her top lip. 

“Supergirl,” Lena answers. She feels that familiar swell of awe in her chest and chokes it down. She is the CEO of Fortune 500 company, she can’t afford to let this embarrassing lingering hero-worship blind her. She bites at her lower lip, watching the corded muscle in Supergirl’s forearms flex beneath the skin-tight blue spandex, lingering on the ply of strong thighs under the high hem of that sinful red skirt. Lena focuses her eyes back on Supergirl’ watchful gaze, cursing herself for drooling like some sort of teenage fangirl. 

Lena Luthor is better than this. It’s just—there’s something about her. Beneath the crimson crest and lean, toned muscle, there is something familiar. An intimacy Lena can’t quite seem to place. If she didn’t know any better, Lena would think she had met Supergirl outside of her recent life-jeopardizing situations. Lena reminds herself not to think much of it, the ache Supergirl sets humming in her chest is easily explainable: pretty girls have always been Lena’s kryptonite.

So to speak. 

“Is everything all right?” Lena finally asks, breaking the silence, “or should I assume this is a social call?” She’s teasing and luckily Supergirl laughs, dropping her hands from her hips and risking a small step forward. Neither of them have forgotten that fight in Lena’s office weeks before, how Lena had bristled at Supergirl’s accusations, the intensity with which Supergirl had approached her, over-earnest and trusting. Lena remembers, more clearly then she would like, how in those seconds after she ordered Supergirl out, she had looked as though something in her had shattered. 

Lena notices now, that Supergirl is careful not to get too close. 

“Unfortunately not,” Supergirl says, “but it’s nothing bad,” she rushes to add on. “I just thought I would check up on you, and tell you that they announced the trial date for your mother.” 

Lena nods coolly, turning slightly to adjust some imperceptible flaw on her desk, “I read that in the paper this morning, actually.” 

“Right,” Supergirl says, looking almost flustered now, eyes darting around the office, “I guess I just,” she falters, “wanted to see how you were doing.” Lena turns again to face her and Supergirl immediately straightens under her gaze, the impassivity back on her face. 

“I’m doing fine,” she says sharply, softening when Supergirl flinches, “work keeps me busy.” 

Supergirl frowns. “I see you here working late almost every night,” she hesitates, “perhaps you should give yourself a break.”

Lena cinches her eyebrows together, tilting her head, “You see me working late?” 

Supergirl’s eyes widen and she holds her hands, palm up, in front of her, protesting. “Oh no, I mean I—” Lena smirks. “I just y’know,” Supergirl gestures vaguely, “I fly by, you know how it is.” 

Lena is fascinated by the pink blush that seems to be crawling up Supergirl’s neck now, and she chances a slight step forward. “I don’t actually,” she says. She spares a quick glance out the window, at the expansive stretch of the city below, distant lights just prisms of gold in a smog darkened sky. “It can’t imagine what it would be like to fly, it must be exhilarating.”

A flash of excitement lights up Supergirl’s face, eyes blinking wide, brightening. “It’s everything” she says, breathless. She pauses to consider Lena, a confidence angling her mouth into a bold, almost arrogant, smile. “I could take you sometime,” she says. They are another step closer, and Lena can’t seem to remember who moved first. Supergirl squares her shoulders, any trace of the earlier blush gone, all hero and mythos now, a confidence that tilts her chin high. She ducks her head to meet Lena’s eyes, mouth opened as though she will say more. 

Before she can, the wail of distant sirens cuts through the glass walls of the office, and Supergirl cocks her head to the side, closing her eyes briefly while she pin points the sound. When she opens them they flash blue. She gifts Lena with a crooked, stomach-dropping smile. 

“Duty calls.” 

She’s gone in a flutter of the papers on Lena’s desk and the slam of the sheer balcony door, Lena thinks she can just make out the flash of a red cape hurtling toward the horizon. 

Lena leans fully back against her desk, closing her eyes and exhaling hard out of her nose. 

“Fuck.”

**

Lena sees Kara first. She pauses outside the elevator doors, shifting her purse over her shoulder, not bothering to hide her smile as she watches Kara from across the office floor. She’s wearing a yellow sweater, the collar of a white blouse arranged carefully over the scooped hemline of the pullover. Lena watches as Kara reclines back on a desk, flipping through a sheaf of paper she clutches tight in one hand. Lena can see her pout from here, and she feels that familiar tug of affection in the pit of her stomach. Kara doesn’t look up even as Lena walks closer, her apparent concentration overwhelming even the heavy clack of Lena’s heels. 

“Kara,” Lena says, softly, trying not to startle her. 

Lena has noticed Kara is something of a clutz, her head so firmly encompassed in the clouds, that Lena sometimes thinks she’s lucky to ever rouse her from her daydreams long enough to get her attention. The last time Kara was at Lena’s office she managed to not only spill an entire bottle of wine over her thin white blouse, but she had been adorably ignorant of the fact that the spreading red stain was turning the white fabric sheer. That night had been something close to a disaster, with Lena blushing a deep, flustered red as she forced herself to avert her eyes and point out the issue, and Kara’s reaction being to start unbuttoning her shirt completely. 

(In the end, Kara snuggled into one of Lena’s old Harvard hoodies and laughed until the blush in Lena’s cheeks faded.)

(So, not quite a disaster after all.) 

Despite Lena’s attempt at not surprising her, Kara jumps anyway, hand automatically going up to fumble nervously with the frame of her glasses. 

“Lena!” she says, voice pitching up, before she breaks out in a broad grin, her smile pulling high at her cheeks. 

Lena laughs, “I didn’t mean to startle you.” She absently reaches out to touch Kara’s shoulder, pulling back before she makes contact, running her hand through her hair instead. “I was in the neighborhood and I just thought…” she trails off, suddenly unsure. 

But Kara just grins, ducking her head in a movement that looks familiar, though Lena can’t quite place it. “I’m so glad you came by,” she shoots a glare at the papers in her hand, “Snapper’s copy-edits are driving me insane.” She brings the paper closer to her face, squinting like she can incinerate it with just a look, “I swear he thinks every word that isn’t an action verb or a pronoun is fluff.” 

Lena smiles, reaching out again, this time brushing at Kara’s wrist lightly with two fingers, “I’m sure it’s incredible.” Kara looks up, hopeful. Lena winks. “That Snapper doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she lowers her voice, “trust me I’m famous.” 

Kara laughs, swatting at Lena with one hand, while Lena looks on, pleased. “You’re ridiculous.” 

There is a beat of silence where they just look at each other, suspended in a comfortable lull of their own making. Kara is still smiling at Lena and the brightness of it cuts deep, an almost tangible weight of intense and utter like settling heavy in her chest. 

It feels far too young for Lena’s liking, this affection too overwhelmingly strong all on its own, too close to those early boarding school crushes. It reminds Lena of fumbling her way through clumsy first kisses with girls with pretty hair and pretty smiles and small, dainty wrists. Lena fell for the sweet girls, the ones her name and family and bite eventually broke. Lena looks at Kara, all wide smile and pretty pastels, and wonders if she is going to break her too. 

“I was wondering,” Lena starts, leaning a little closer, watching Kara swallow hard, “If you wanted to go get drinks tonight.” 

“Drinks?” Kara says, voice on an uptick like the idea is incomprehensible. 

“Drinks. Between friends. It’s a Friday, it’s been a long week…” she tilts her head, pouting her lip and watching as Kara melts. 

“Drinks would be nice,” Kara says, she shakes her head, “awesome.” She wrinkles her nose at herself, “nice,” she corrects, “really really nice.” 

“Good,” Lena says, already turning, pretending she can’t feel the way Kara watches her as she leaves, “I’ll pick you up at 8.” 

She thinks she hears a mumbled “awesome” as she gets on the elevator, but there’s no way to be sure. 

**

Kara bailed. 

In her exact words, a text: I can’t. 

And then, five minutes later, another: I’m so sorry, something came up. 

Lena knows what being stood up looks like, but she never expected it from her. Lena feels heartbroken, which she knows is ridiculous, it wasn’t Kara’s heart to break. They were barely anything, barely friends even, and Lena knows Kara is probably straight anyway and she knows it was stupid to hope and she knows and she knows and she knows. 

Against all odds and logic and sense, Lena is heartbroken. She feels as though her last remnants of sunlight have shrunk back to shadow, leaving her entombed in the darkness, shivering. She feels ten again, huddled under her sheets, her flashlight wavering once, a final sanctuary of pooled golden light, before it goes out for good. 

Kara bails so Lena drinks. Alone. 

She splays across the couch in her office, two glasses of scotch in, and stares hard at the work spread across the spare cushion. The words are almost swimming now and she rubs hard at her temple, the ice clinking in her glass, over-loud in the dark, static silence that surrounds her. Lena thinks she must have pushed too hard. She likes Kara, a lot, a dangerous amount of a lot, but she could be content with friends. Lena fucked it all up. She must have made Kara uncomfortable, and the idea of it, the idea of Kara not feeling safe enough to refuse, rips hard at her chest. 

Maybe Kara was scared of her. She is a Luthor after all. 

Lena takes another sip of scotch, enjoying the slow burn as it drags down her throat, nursing the light murmur of alcohol as begins to muddle her head, a thin layer of gauze superseding her more biting thoughts. She swirls her glass absently, watching the fragile bones of her wrist flex with the motion. 

She is so breakable. Another sip. They say it dulls the pain, after all. 

Idly, Lena considers she is being over dramatic, but then she pictures Kara’s smile, the lean sunlight sprawl of her, over-eager and incredibly intelligent, and it feels like she has a right to her drama, if just for a little while. 

It’s just after midnight when Lena wakes from her slump on the couch. She can’t have dozed off for long, her glass still rests, half-filled on the table before her, and the moon hinges full and otherworldly above her balcony. She blinks at the bright silver light before reaching for her glass. It isn’t until she takes another drink that she realizes that there is a reason she woke up. 

There is something on her balcony. More specifically: someone. Any other night, Lena would have the good graces to startle, but tonight she just sighs, shifting her drink to her left hand as she hauls herself unsteadily to her feet. She shucked off her heels hours ago, her cardigan too, leaving her in a sleeveless blouse and tightfitting skirt, both wrinkled from her ill-begotten nap. She walks to the balcony door anyway, pushing it open and calling out into the dark. 

“This is really not a good time.” It’s an understatement, but Lena figures her general appearance will be enough to fill in the blanks. 

Supergirl shifts uneasily where she leans against the balcony railing. Lena looks closer, the swathes of moonlight cutting harsh lines across Supergirl’s form. It’s clear now that she is slumping more than leaning, arm held awkwardly at her side. Lena thinks she makes out quickly fading bruises marring her high cheekbones, drying blood all that remains of the cuts that must have slashed her near impervious skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Supergirl says, more a whisper than anything, “I just—” she trails off and Lean sighs, stepping away from the door and heading back inside to her drink cart. She pours more of the amber liquid into her glass before filling a second, shooting a glance back at Supergirl. 

“This is your invitation,” Lena says, tongue heavy, voice more a slur than anything, “It’s all you’re getting.” 

Supergirl strides gratefully into the room, but her straight backed posturing seems even more forced than usual. The shafts of light throw her face into sharp relief, and her shoulders slump as soon as she accepts the drink. 

Lena studies her slowly. Past the wind-ruffled hair and noble chin, she can so clearly see the grief that clings to her, as heavy and unmistakable as her cape, and it’s a mystery how Lena has missed it before. This woman has seen the death of worlds, and the weight of this new one threatens to bury her alive. Lena feels a heavy pang of sympathy, and crosses her arms over her chest before she does something she will regret. 

“Should I ask why you are here?” Lena says, too tired for formalities, thinking this stripped down woman before her might be, too. 

Supergirl shakes her head, drink out of place in her hand. She casts a look around the room before carefully setting it on the corner of Lena’s desk. “I didn’t want to go home.” She shrugs, arms still held tightly against her body, “I figured you might be awake.” She barks out a short laugh, “You might be one of the only people in this town who works longer hours than I do.” 

Lena manages a smile, raising her drink in a short salute before finishing it in a single swallow. She sets the glass back down on the cart and gestures to Supergirl with her empty palms, “But tonight I’m not working.” 

Supergirl tries for a smile, but it falls flat. “Apparently.” 

Lena tugs at her skirt, attempting some composure, but her mind is so muddled and dreamy, and there is a disconcerting blurriness to the world around her, so she stops trying. 

“You look like you had an even worse night than I did,” Lena says. She shifts closer, stopping herself from stroking at the bruise on Supergirl’s pale cheek, “Should I ask?” 

Supergirl shrugs, wincing as it pulls at her shoulder. “A Kriglo Martian,” she says, “he had a mean temper and an even meaner bite.”

Lena tries out the word, rolling the vowels over her tongue. If she thinks she sees Supergirl watching her mouth, she chocks it up to the scotch. “A Kriglo Martian?” 

“Picture like a giant spider, but green.”

Lena shivers. “I would prefer not to.” 

Supergirl laughs, in earnest this time, “Me too, honestly. He um—” she stutters here, seeming like she regrets starting the sentence, “He really took me by surprise. Ruined my evening.” 

Lena presses in a little closer, and maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s the vulnerable look on the so called Girl of Steel’s normally stoic face, but she lays a soft hand against Supergirl’s waist. “Does that hurt?” she asks softly, and Supergirl blinks wide, eyes this tremulous, careful blue.

“No,” she says, a breath more than anything, “no, definitely not.” 

Lena pulls away, ignoring the blush staining her cheeks. Anyone can tell it’s just the drinks, anyway. “Will you heal?”

Supergirl grits her teeth, rolling her shoulder slowly. “I already am,” she grins, trying for cheeky and only barely falling short, “by the time the sun rises I’ll be as good as new.” Supergirl looks around, taking in the half empty bottle of scotch, the papers strewn about the normally meticulous office. “Should I ask why you seem…” 

Lena smirks, baleful and wild, hand still thrumming from the heady heat of Supergirl’s body. “What? Am I not my usual chipper self?” 

Supergirl nods slowly, sparing another glance to the heavy sky outside. 

Lena smiles slightly, shuffling to the couch so she can sit down, her tights suddenly too constricting around her legs. “It’s just a girl,” she pauses, embarrassed to be admitting this to National City’s beloved superhero. Someone who, until now, has been more symbol than human. Although, Lena thinks, that’s just it: she’s not human at all. 

Supergirl perches tentatively on the edge of her desk, “a girl?” 

Lena sighs. “I got stood up.” She’s keenly embarrassed to admit it, but drunk enough that her tongue lets her, “by a girl I really like.” She stares hard at the shadowed far wall of her office, “although maybe it wasn’t actually a date…”

A voice interrupts her musings, small and pitched high, “You really like her?” 

Lena turns to face Supergirl, face pinched tight. “What?” 

Supergirl jerks up straight, hands automatically shooting to her hips like some sort of heroic defense mechanism, “What?” She coughs awkwardly into her palm, “I just mean, that’s too bad.” 

Lena sinks back into the couch, “Girls, y’know.” 

She sees Supergirl shift out of corner of her eye, watches her start to approach slowly. “I can show you what I do, when I get upset? If you would like to?” 

This amount of apparent uncertainty from Supergirl seems unfitting, but it’s obviously been a hard night for both of them, and this situation is far from conventional. Lena sits up straighter. “I would love to.” 

**

Ten minutes later, they are among the stars. Or, more precisely, they are perched on the roof of The L Corp building. 

When Supergirl suggested it, for a heart stopping moment, Lena thought that she was going to take her flying, but they took the stairs instead. Supergirl mundanely climbing four flights of stairs in full heroic costume had set Lena giggling, and Supergirl had watched Lena leaning hard against the utilitarian railing of the grimly lit stairwell laughing her ass off with this look of utter amusement. 

When they had gotten to the roof, Supergirl had sat on the edge with no hesitation, red boots dangling over the precarious, dizzying drop. Lena had been more cautious, approaching slowly, with shuffling steps. Supergirl had waited patiently, and when Lena neared the edge, coaxed her down next to her. As she sat, Supergirl set a warm reassuring hand on Lena’s thigh. 

“Don’t worry, Ms. Luthor, I won’t let you fall.” 

Lena felt that thrill of attraction roil low in her stomach, but then, thinking of Kara, it dulled and hardened. Supergirl must have seen her face fall, and quietly removed her hand. 

“Alright,” Supergirl says, tilting her head back, “now we look at the stars.” 

The cosmos were never-ending, the sheer number of lights adorning the sky implausible. Lena, a scientist, was usually quick to categorize it all, remove the romance with the application of numbers and fact. But tonight, scotch drunk and reeling, smelling the faint musk of Supergirl’s sweat and below that, something fruity, she let the sky devour her. 

If their pinkies brushed on the ledge beside them, they said nothing about it. And when Lena spared Supergirl a glance, she found the perfect slope of her throat, pale and gleaming, while she studied the sky with a deep, sorrowful hunger. 

Supergirl turns to look at her, blinking slow, and Lena sees the whole night sky reflected in the light of Supergirl’s wide, careful eyes. 

**

Supergirl helps Lena back down the stairs later that night, Lena’s eyes heavy with sleep and alcohol, body and heart so weary she thinks she could sleep forever. Supergirl carefully clears the couch, stacking Lena’s things in a pile on her desk. She coaxes Lena to lie down, watching her curl her knees to her chest, hands cupped beneath her head. Supergirl finds Lena’s throw and settles it across her. 

Lena mumbles into her hands, eyes drifting shut, “Will you stay?” 

She can hear the smile in Supergirl’s voice, “Until you sleep.” 

When Lena wakes, the sun colors the city gold, and Supergirl is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year you guys, i hope this helps it get off to a good start.

Lena leans on her desk with heavy elbows, face cupped between her palms. She is nursing a hangover that eclipses her vast office space, all throb and nauseous swell. Her night of pining and star-gazing has gifted her with a massive headache and purple bruises smudged into the skin beneath her eyes. Even her cover-up can’t conceal the weight of her exhaustion. She shoots a glare at that taunting half-bottle of scotch from across the room.

She turns her attention back to her desk where two objects sit before her. First, on the left, her alien-detection device, almost perfected, sleek and metallic, the L Corp logo branding the side. On the right, a press release.

She considers them both carefully, wondering when this product became such a question of morality, a plague on her ethos, a creation to dread rather than revere. She knows the release of this product has the potential to usher in a new era of Alien Rights, but she worries she is shaping it for the worse.

Lena wonders if this is a destiny she will ever shake free of. She was raised by prejudice, the kind delivered by an absent father, an uncaring mother, and a doting brother; though now she is forced to see that love as a manipulation. Their constant attempts to root the anti-alien rhetoric deep in her mind shook her, shaped her, and even now she struggles to break free of that learned bias. She was fed lies, and the worst part is she craved their attention enough to willingly consume them. It’s left her overly-cautious and weary. Aliens can hurt humans. But Lena is smart enough to know that humans can, too.

Sometimes she thinks that she is so caught in this circle of violence, one day it will become all she is.

Sometimes she thinks it might be better that way.

Lena is the heir to an evil, and _god_ sometimes it calls.

Lena saves the press release for another day. The device goes back under lock and key.

**

Kara doesn’t call. Kara doesn’t call. Kara doesn’t call.

**

On Monday morning, Jess delivers the monthly business report. Lena flips through it at her desk, allowing herself a smile as she views the numbers. L Corp is doing well, the re-branding a success, and for the first time since Lex turned, Lena feels herself shedding the Luthor shadow.

There’s a knock on the door and Lena doesn’t look up. It’s probably Jess with more numbers, or a gaudy gift basket from a potential business partner. She flicks her eyes to her planner, there is no meeting penciled in. Lena turns her eyes to the doorway, brow cinched in a glare, ready to be annoyed about the interruption.

It’s Kara. She stands in an awkward hover in the doorway, hands clutching at her note pad, hair pulled tight back from her face in a weave of intricate braids. She looks beautiful and hesitant, her wavering smile a sample of sunlight, evoking a warm throb in the raw ache of Lena’s chest. Lena feels herself immediately soften, but then she remembers Friday night and straightens her posture, steepling her fingers and steeling her gaze.

“Ms. Danvers,” she says, not impolitely, but not warmly either, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Kara steps closer and Lena can see she is red-faced and glistening, flustered and almost breathing hard, like she had ran several blocks to get here. Kara opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Lena watches, curious.

“Brunch?” Kara finally says, word a stutter, face blushing a darker red.

Lena can’t stop her laugh, “I’m sorry?”

“Brunch. With me. Do you want to?”

Lena sits back in her chair, looking a little desperately around her office and then back at Kara, her her hair falling out of her high braids in tendrils now, hands anxiously crossed over her stomach.

“Right now?”

Kara smiles weakly, “Yes, please.” She pauses, corrects, “If you would like.”

Lena can feel her hesitation waning, so utterly charmed by the bright, flustered girl in front of her, like she has been since the first day they met.

“And Friday—”

“Was a fluke,” Kara cuts her off, waving a hand, taking a few steps forward. There is a familiar confidence in the set of her shoulders now, and Lena shrugs off her sudden wave of Déjà vu. “This weekend has honestly been,” Kara pauses to heave out a long sigh, “a mess.” She grins, even closer now, leaning over Lena’s desk, carefully taking her hand, “but now I want to get brunch with my friend,” she tilts her head, voice raising into a question, “and maybe you do, too?”

Lena looks down at their joined hands on the shiny finish of her desk. Kara holds her so carefully, like she thinks Lena might break. Kara strokes her thumb across the back of Lena’s knuckles and she shivers, tilting up her heavy gaze to meet Kara’s eyes, watching her bite the plush bow of her bottom lip into her mouth. Lena stands.

“Let’s go.”

Lena laughs as they get on the elevator, taking Kara’s arm and leaning against her conspiratorially. Kara pulls her a little closer, linking her arm through Lena’s and turning her head.

“Why are you laughing?” she whispers, voice a hush despite the fact that they are the only two in the elevator.

Lena turns to face Kara as well and almost swallows her tongue. Kara usually has a few inches on her, a fact she takes every opportunity to tease Lena about, but with Lena in her heels, they are nose to nose. Lena can see the light dusting of freckles across the bridge of Kara’s nose, can smell the sharp lilac of her shampoo and feel the faint tickle of Kara’s breath against her lips. She forgets everything she had to say, just blinks wide at Kara’s steady, dark-lashed gaze.

In another world, Lena would be laughing at herself: so taken by this girl she barely knows, already falling for someone before they kiss, before they’ve fucked.

In another world, Lena Luthor would be absolutely appalled, but in this one Kara Danvers is a mere inch away and Lena can’t remember how to speak.

Kara doesn’t seem to notice. She smiles, nudging in until she lightly taps her forehead against Lena’s own, pulling away before Lena can literally hyperventilate.

“Why were you laughing?” she asks again.

Lena shakes herself from her reverie, glancing around, tightening her grip on Kara’s arm. “I was just—” She takes another beat, collecting her thoughts. “I haven’t left the office before six p.m. in ages.”

Kara grins, wiggling excitedly in place, “It’s like a jailbreak!”

Lena laughs as the elevator doors slide open, pulling Kara out into the echoing, marble-floored lobby. “It’s not every day that my hero frees me for brunch.”

Kara barks out an abrupt laugh. “I’m no hero,” she says, nervously, stumbling on her words again.

Lena looks at her, shaking her head, “Well, you are mine.”

Kara holds her gaze, face breaking into an impossible smile, before she grabs Lena’s hand and pulls her out of the lobby and into the blinding sunlight.

**

Lena is starting in on her third mimosa, taking a sip of the drink and enjoying the bubbly bite that follows. Kara sits across from her, head leaned in her palm, watching Lena with a satin smile, cheek smooshed adorably against her hand.

The outdoor patio around them is crowded, tables of well-polished couples enjoying a rare day of mid-winter heat, getting tipsy on orange juice and champagne, the blue sky overhead a cloudless canopy.

Lena didn’t mean to drink so much at brunch, but their food still hasn’t come, and she’s just trying to match Kara. Kara who, despite her three glasses of the stuff, doesn’t seem the least bit tipsy at all. Kara takes another sip of her drink, grinning at Lena over the rim.

“You alright there, Ms. Luthor?”

She’s teasing, and Lena pouts, pushing her glass away from her.

“Don’t call me that,” she grumbles half-heartedly, swatting at Kara across the table.

“Why?” Kara asks, head cocked, that smirk still lingering at the corner of her mouth, “too formal?”

Lena has to hesitate before she answers, choosing her words carefully. Vodka and whisky slur her, making her pliable and loose, but champagne just turns her on. She exhales slowly, giving her delayed mind enough time to remind her mouth not to tell Kara that being called “Ms. Luthor” is creating some role-play fantasies she didn’t know she had.

But Kara is still wearing that small smile, fingers playing with the rim of her cocktail glass now, and Lena ignores the steady ache low in her stomach, reminding herself that they are two friends out for a platonic brunch and that it’s just the champagne acting as an aphrodisiac.

“You’ve finally got me out of the office,” Lena says finally, “don’t remind me I have to go back there so soon.”

Kara pouts, fidgeting with her glasses. “You don’t have to.”

Lena laughs, disbelieving. “Are you suggesting I play hooky with you for a whole day?”

Kara grins, “I mean you are the boss.”

Lena shakes her head, “All the more reason I have to get back.”

Kara’s pout deepens, lip jutting, and Lena finds herself staring too long at the dimple in the bow of her bottom lip, something in her jaw aching to bite. She zones out, eyes glazing slightly, and when she refocuses Kara is smiling again.

“Had too much to drink?”

Lena glares, annoyed that for once Kara is on top. She drops her gaze, twisting her lips into a smile and quirking one eyebrow. She leans forward in her chair, wrought metal scraping the cobblestone below. Lena reaches a hand across the table, careful not to disrupt the graveyard of empty flute glasses, and toys absently with the cuff of Kara's sweater, fingers stroking at the fluttering pulse of Kara’s wrist.

Kara’s eyes are wide now, and Lena studies her straight, noble nose, the divot that runs to the perfect swooping lines of her mouth. Lena feels that ache again, almost tangible, and wonders at the quiet draw of this girl across from her. There is something magnetic in the way she looks at her, something that transcends this table and this patio and even the bounds of this sprawling city. Lena looks at Kara and thinks that she must belong to the stars. There is no other excuse for Kara’s luster to match this earth’s sun, suddenly so inconsequential in light of the woman before her.

Lena realizes she has zoned off again, made worse by the fact that her fingers still stroke over the soft skin of Kara’s forearm, dancing over delicate blue veins. There’s that faint pink blush high in Kara’s cheeks again, and Lena thinks that even if she is making a fool of herself, at least Kara doesn’t escape totally unaffected. Lena pulls her hand away, a chant of _friends friends friends_ running a repeating loop in her mind.

Lena searches for something to say, something that doesn’t involve stars or champagne or the way Kara’s pulse felt beneath her fingertips. Kara seems equally at a loss for words, and her mouth opens before closing again, eyes lighting up as they fix on something over Lena’s shoulder.

“Waffles!” Kara says, smiling broadly at the waiter, taking her plate from his hand and ignoring his quick admonishment of “careful it’s hot.”

“Thank you,” Lena says as he puts her plate in front of her, she smiles, watching him shuffle in place as she turns to look at him, “it looks lovely.”

He nods quickly, hands burying nervously in the front pocket of his apron, “You ladies just let me know if you need anything.” He hesitates just a second too long, still staring at Lena, before he remembers himself, turning and hurrying away. When Lena looks away from his retreating back, Kara’s eyebrows are creased in a dissatisfied frown.

“He was stare-y,” she says critically, still frowning.

Lena laughs. “He was probably just admiring your massive amount of waffles.” She squints at the leaning tower of dough on Kara’s plate, “did you get a double order?”

“It’s a triple,” Kara says, brushing her off, “But we both know that isn’t what he was looking at.” She gestures at Lena, flapping her wrist with an almost off-putting energy, “He was looking at your…whole thing.”

Lena smirks. “My whole thing?”

Kara sighs, exasperated. “You know your gorgeous businesswoman-chic-sexy-thing.”

Lena’s mouth falls open a little bit in a satisfied grin, and she arches one eyebrow while Kara quickly tries to backpedal.

“Gorgeous?” Lena says, teasing and pitched high, “You think I’m gorgeous?”

Kara’s cheeks are bright pink now, and she tightens her grip on her fork, knuckles turning white, “I just meant—I mean obviously—”

Lena lowers her voice, leaning across the table and poking at Kara’s flushed cheek, “Sexy?” She says it like she’s scandalized, enjoying Kara’s flustered annoyance.

Kara finally raises her hands in front of herself, palms flat, the universal sign of surrender, “Oh my gosh Lena shut up you know you’re like drop dead gorgeous.”

“Drop dead gorgeous!” Lena says, laughing now, “Oh Kara, keep it coming.”

Kara buries her face in her hands and Lena keeps laughing, only stopping when her eyes fall on the table-top. “Oh my god Kara, did you do that to your fork?”

Kara’s head shoots up and she glances down at the table where her metal fork sits, mangled and bent, like something made out of play-do instead of carefully burnished sterling-silver. Kara makes a grab for it, running it between her palms. She holds it up, the metal mostly straightened. There’s a nervous grin pasted on her face.

“See? Good as new!”

Lena picks up her own fork, frowning at it. “How did you do that?”

Kara laughs, an abrupt bray, “Y’know how it is, cheap cutlery and all that.” She waves the fork in the air, “nothing to think about, let’s eat!” She digs into her food eagerly, head down, muttering nonsense syllables into her plate.

Lena goes to say more but stops, amused by the amount of waffle Kara has managed to stuff into her mouth, cheeks bulging, chipmunk-cartoonish and startling endearing.

In the Luthor household, meals were a painful affair: overly formal and strict, every bite a part of a carefully synchronized dance. She learned how to eat like a silence, invisible and dutiful while Lex and her father made methodical, obligatory small talk. Meals weren’t fun, they were a requisite, and Lena learned to dread them.

But now there’s Kara, eager and bright and lovely, who eats with as much verve and enthusiasm as she does everything. A splash of color in a life that, until now, Lena has molded to be monochrome.

Kara looks up, swallowing hard, smiling at Lena until she eyes the omelet on her plate. She pulls a face, sticking out her tongue. “That looks suspiciously like something Ms. Grant would eat.”

Lena smiles back, “Is that so bad?”

Kara shrugs. “No, but it’s a little boring.”

Lena raises her eyebrows, halfway to affronted. “And waffles are so thrilling?”

“No but they are delicious.” Kara digs out a square of her waffled, skewing it on her fork and holding it between them. “Try it.”

Lena eyes the bite, watching the viscous drip of syrup and butter fall to the tablecloth below. “I don’t know, Kara. We don’t all have the metabolism of a teenager.”

Kara rolls her eyes, nudging the bite even closer to Lena’s mouth. “One bite won’t kill you.”

Lena glances again at Kara, at the brightness of her eyes, the pleased quirk of her smile, before leaning toward Kara’s proffered fork. She wraps her lips around the bite carefully, her tongue flicking out to catch stray drops of crystalline sugar, and she thinks she sees Kara shift in closer, eyes half-lidded and expression hungry.

Lena pulls back, chewing leisurely, letting the butter and sugar settle in her mouth, the flavor triggering a wave of nostalgia to a childhood memory she can’t quite place. Kara is still watching her and, before Lena can react, Kara reaches across the table and slowly drags her thumb along Lena’s bottom lip. Lena looks at her, eyes wide, hating the burn she feels in her cheeks, the flush spreading to her neck.

Kara hesitates a beat before bringing her finger to her own mouth, sucking it clean. “You had some syrup…” Kara says, trailing off slowly.

Lena swallows hard, the ache back, beating a warm, insatiable pulse between her legs. For the first time, Lena realizes that she isn’t the only one playing the game. Kara smiles, slow and sweet, reaching across once more to gently wipe a finger again at Lena’s top lip. She pulls back, holding up her thumb, a smear of red staining her fingertip.

“Your lipstick was smudged,” she says, still smiling.

Lena blinks hard, taking a long shaky breath. She tries to stop the flash of images rolling through her mind: her lipstick smudging Kara’s lips, staining her neck, her breasts, the inside of her thighs. Kara wipes the lipstick carefully on a napkin before offering Lena another bite of her waffle. Lena takes it without hesitation, realizing, all at once and reeling, that Kara isn’t just playing the game: she’s winning.

**

Lena pays the check. She’s determined to win back the upper hand, and when the waiter brings the check she quickly takes it from his hand despite Kara’s protests. Kara whines, grabbing at Lena’s wrist once the waiter leaves and she has given him her requisite parting glare—

“Lena, this was my idea, let me pay,” she spares her empty plate a guilty glance, “plus, I think I ate like four times the amount of food that you did.”

Lena waves her off, carefully extracting herself from Kara’s surprisingly strong grip. “Nonsense, Kara.” Lena half smiles, reaching out a hand to lay over top Kara’s, “You can pay me back later.”

“Oh yeah?” Kara says, teeth flashing as she grins, tilting her head, eyes narrowing behind her glasses’ lens.

Lena leans in closer over the table, decidedly not fooled by Kara’s play at innocence. “Yeah.”

Then, Kara is leaning in too, their fingers intertwined on the creamy white tablecloth, faces just inches apart now. The sun arcs high over the patio, backlighting Kara’s braids with a kind of halo, glinting off their crystalline water glasses. Kara starts to close the gap, eyes focused on Lena’s lips. Lena lets her, darting out a tongue to wet her lips, stomach twisting in anticipation. Kara’s nose is almost brushing hers and Lena closes her eyes. Kara smells like syrup.

Two hands clamp down on Kara’s shoulders, jolting them apart. Kara startles back, letting out a squeak of surprise. She turns her in her chair, annoyance flashing across her face, until she realizes who is touching her.

“Alex,” Kara breathes, “is everything okay?”

Alex shoots a glance at Lena, looking a combination of intrigued and utterly annoyed. Lena purses her lips, giving it back just as good, sweeping a glance down Alex’s lean frame. She wears a three quarter zip overtop heavy cargo pants. Lena can just make out the bulk of a gun at her hip. Alex is all sharp edges where Kara is rounded, and Lena can’t help but admire the jut of her cheekbones, the precise, delicate angle of her collarbones. She is certainly beautiful, elegant despite her utilitarian garb, but then Lena turns her gaze to Kara, sitting startled and apprehensive, lips parted in worry, and the swoop in Lena’s stomach doesn’t even allow the comparison.

“Not exactly,” Alex says. Lena notices she is slightly out of breath, a light sheen of sweat staining her brow, and she wonders what governmental issue could require Kara’s assistance. “We need your help,” she spares another look at Lena then back to Kara, “right now, please.”

Kara stands, jolting the table, looking harried and a little put-out. But she grabs her things to go without complaint, tapping Alex on the arm. “You go, I’ll catch up,” she says.

“Kara,” Alex says, drawing out the syllable, a warning.

Kara just brushes her off, eyes fixed on Lena, “I said I’ll catch up.”

Alex throws her hands in the air exasperated, but when she turns to look at Kara her expression is so intensely fond and affectionate that Lena wonders how she ever could have thought Lex’s love was anything but self-serving.

“Alright,” Alex says, “but be fast.” She tugs one of the escaping tendrils from Kara’s braid warmly, smiling as Kara swats her away.

Kara watches Alex’s retreating back for a moment before turning back to Lena, eyebrows furrowed in apology, already reaching out to catch at Lena’s hands. “I’m so sorry,” she says, “I had no idea she was going to need me.”

Lena just shakes her head, confused, cradling Kara’s long fingers between her palms. “It’s completely fine, Kara. I just don’t understand—”

Kara cuts her off, stepping closer, “I really can’t explain right now,” she says, tone hurried, almost nervous, “sometimes I just have an eye for some of Alex’s cases.”

Lena smiles, still flustered by the sudden change of events. “Well aren’t you a little Nancy Drew.”

Kara grins, ducking down and pressing a quick kiss to the apple of Lena’s cheek. “Something like that.”

Then she’s off, walking from the table so fast that Lena, still addled from the feel of Kara’s warm lips against her skin, barely has time to register her leaving.

**

One o’clock finds Lena back in her office, standing in front of the floor length windows, arms crossed as she stares out over the city. The buildings are sunlight saturated, bright rays reflecting off of skyscrapers entombed in glass, the resulting sheen almost blindly. Lena studies the sky slowly, following the whorl of wispy clouds, the horizon of the light-crested water of the bay, scanning the tops of the corporate offices and high-rises that stretch before her.

Only after she stands for several minutes does Lena realize she is absently searching the sky for Supergirl. She allows herself one last glance across the sun-stricken sky before turning back to her work.

Later, Lena vaguely thinks that she was a fool for looking: her Supergirl only comes at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im at nevervalentines.tumblr.com if you wanna talk about katie mcgrath's facial structure or melissa benoist's arms or anything at all those were just suggestions


	3. Chapter 3

Lena wakes up with three texts from Kara. She blinks blearily at her phone screen, rubbing hard at one eye with the round of her palm. She is hopeless without her contacts, and she scrambles at her nightstand until she can find her black rimmed glasses. She fumbles them on, interrupted by a yawn, and hitches herself higher, struggling to escape the cloud-like plush of her bed.

Most of Lena’s exes told her it was excessive, this nest of pillows and pure white duvets. Lena’s last girlfriend told her she spent half the time in that bed worried she was going to drown. Lena sometimes worries the smirk she gave her ex after that comment contributed to their break up but—it suits her, the swathes of blankets and cushions. On nights like this—nights where she is sleeping alone and wishing she wasn’t—it feels something like being held.

Lena’s vision is still blurred, her room an indistinct smudge of stark furniture and highbrow modern art. Lena swipes at the lenses with her sleeves, cleaning them enough to squint at her screen.

The first text is simple: _i had an amazing time at brunch, im super sorry I had to leave so soon_

Lena smiles at the screen and immediately feels like an idiot, grinning alone in her room. But then she remembers the almost-kiss, the almost-date, and lets herself smile despite it all.

The second text is a little more complicated, a mess of emojis that Lena can’t even begin to decipher. Among them is at least four red hearts, two over-wrought smileys, a bottle of champagne, and—inexplicably—the rainbow wheeled lollipop. Lena gives up after a few minutes of intense study. Harvard was a joke compared to this.

The last text is a little easier to understand, but twists her stomach into knots: _dinner at my place tomorrow evening? If you want?_

Lena turns it over in her head, pretending to consider. She is unused to this: this pure emotional _want_. It’s the physical too, obviously. Lena thinks about the hard lean of Kara, who she is starting to suspect is all muscle under those bright button downs, and feels a catch in her chest. She closes her eyes because _god yes_ it’s the physical, but the emotional magnetism is what is throwing Lena the most. She is used to being the aggressor, the instigator, and somehow Kara, sweet, wide-eyed Kara, is beating her at her own game.

_I would love to_ , Lena texts, _How’s four?_

The grey ellipses pop up almost immediately, and Lena can picture Kara, fiddling with a pencil at her desk in CatCo, probably already stir crazy if she isn’t out on her beat, even at seven a.m.

Kara responds: _four is amazing!!!!_

Lena bites her bottom lip into her mouth, considering, before she types: _why the lollipop?_

Kara responds almost immediately: _I thought it was cute._

Lena huffs out a laugh because of course. She collapses back into her cloud, dark hair fanning out behind her, bottom lip red from all of her nervous worrying. Dinner tomorrow tonight with Kara Danvers. Her stomach flips and if she wasn’t a respected CEO worth millions she would squeal.

(She lets herself dance as she puts on the coffee because honestly, it’s Kara Danvers.)

**

Lena leans out over her balcony ledge, tipping her face to the sky.

The city spreads vast before her, nightfall turning it to a beautiful, breathing thing, flaws softened by advancing shadow. She studies the buildings that loom around her, complex structures clawing free from the earth, grandiose improbabilities arching high into the blue-black sky. Lena imagines the concrete and steel into sentience, as towering and celestial as the Titans from Lex’s storybooks.

It’s hard to believe that such precision and grandeur was born from the hands of man.

Lena hears her balcony door slide open behind her, and exhales softly. Speaking of Gods…

“It’s all clear,” Supergirl says, and Lena can almost imagine the practiced look of impassivity weighing the slope of her brow, the curve of her lips, “Thank you for letting me interrupt your evening.”

Lena still does not turn, just waves her hand dismissively. “This isn’t the first time Lex has sent threats from behind bars.” She curls her fingers back around the cool balcony railing, wishing they could be preoccupied with a glass or her tablet, “And God knows it won’t be the last.”

She feels Supergirl still hovering at her shoulder and schools her face to indifference, hoping her shiver will be blamed on a nonexistent breeze. Supergirl steps closer and Lena hates the way that every atom in her body screams at the proximity, goosebumps break out across her skin and she bites hard at her bottom lip, resenting the grip this attraction has on her.

Lena sighs again, angling her face back to the sky. This crush is truly inconvenient.

Supergirl settles against the railing beside her, cape just grazing Lena’s calf, forearm touching Lena’s, her skin sparking warmth through Lena’s stomach. Supergirl looks to the sky as well, following Lena’s gaze.

“Are you looking for the constellations I showed you the other night?”

Supergirl says it familiarly, easily, as though that night has been one she has considered since. The idea of the memory of that night being accessible to them both jolts Lena hard, she had thought it almost to a dream, an unspoken near-fantastical thing, doomed to go unrepeated.

But here is Supergirl again, resting beside her, chin tipped to the stars.

“I can’t find them,” Lena lies, as though she had been looking, as though her mind was preoccupied with more than the heat and smell and strength of the woman beside her. A part of her aches to lean closer, but another part, settled high and heavy in her chest, beats Kara Kara Kara and keeps its distance.

Supergirl tilts her head to match the angle of Lena’s, their temples almost brushing now, and extends an arm, coaxing Lena to follow the line of her pointed finger. “That’s Orion,” she says, tracing her finger down, “See his belt?”

Lena doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t, and then, suddenly and inexplicably, she does. The three stars glint so bright that it seems impossible she has never seen them before. She wonders how many other things she has missed in this night sky because she didn’t know to look for them.

Supergirl sees the recognition in her eyes and smiles, soft and barely-there, looking a quiet kind of pleased, dropping her arm back to her side. “Do you know the story?”

Lena does. “I don’t.”

Supergirl settles back down to her forearms. Their shoulders are brushing now and the weight of not mentioning it is eclipsing even the silver, unquenchable moon.

“He was a hunter,” Supergirl says, eyes distant, lips barely moving, “The only man Artemis ever favored. Apollo, jealous, sent a scorpion to fight him.” Supergirl does turn to Lena now, eyes dark, “Orion lost.” Her jaw clenches beneath her skin, “Artemis was heartbroken. But Apollo helped to hang his image in the stars so he would never be forgotten.”

“It’s beautiful,” Lena murmurs, words hanging heavy in the still air.

Supergirl turns away. “It’s a tragedy.”

Lena absently raises her hand, tracing the constellation with a careful finger. “Do you have a story for these stars where you are from?”

Supergirl looks away, out across the horizon, at a galaxy Lena cannot see. “My world doesn’t share your stars.”

Lena reaches out slowly, giving Supergirl time to stop her before she settles her hand over Supergirl’s. The skin over her knuckles is soft, the bones fragile and confusingly human beneath the skin, and Lena aches at the feel of her. Supergirl hesitates, silence weighing heavy, before she turns her hand palm up, intertwining Lena’s fingers with her own.

It’s Supergirl who finally breaks the quiet, angling her eyes back toward the city, pointedly looking away from the stars. “I should go.” She gestures vaguely back at Lena’s office, a reminder of the reason she is there in the first place, “your building is clear of any threats for now, we have agents tracking down any of Lex’s known associates on the outside.”

Lena ducks her head gratefully, painfully aware that their hands are still clasped between them, she is sure Supergirl must feel her heartbeat pulsing through her palm. “I should go, too,” she says, “I have some meetings to prep for.”

Supergirl nods in understanding. Lena nods in return.

Neither of them move.

**

Lena wasn’t sure whether to bring wine or flowers as a hostess gift, so she brings both. She has the wine awkwardly tucked under her arm and the flowers squeezed in her palm along with her clutch and a wad of change left over from tipping the taxi driver. A quick check of her watch confirms that the hands are tipping closer to five p.m. than four, and she mutters a low expletive under her breath as she struggles to negotiate knocking.

Lena Luthor is a mess. It is a rare sight and she hopes the universe is appreciating her quiet humiliation. Before the door clicks open, she swipes her sheen of dark hair over one shoulder with a free wrist.

Kara swings open the door abruptly, and the bright beam of her smile is enough to stall Lena in the doorway. Kara’s grin pulls up higher on the right side, creasing her cheek into irresistible laugh lines. Her glasses are lopsided on her face and something Lena suspects to be flour is dusting across her cheek. Lena fumbles the wine, because of course she does.

There is a lull as it falls and Lena winces, waiting for it to shatter against the floor. Years of childhood training teaches her gut to twist in brutal anticipation of the punishment that will follow. But the crash never comes. Kara ducks down, unexpectedly fast, catching the bottle before it can reach the ground. She twists it in her hand to read the label.

“Oh! Red!” she says, grinning up at Lena from her stoop, “I promise I won’t spill it this time.”

A voice rings out from Kara’s apartment before Lena can answer. “Nice catch, Little Danvers!” it crows, “those were some _super_ reflexes.”

Kara turns with a touch of exasperation, pointing the neck of the bottle at the offending figure. “You. Scram.”

The woman leaning against the kitchen counter laughs, holding up her palms in surrender. She steps forward into the pooled light of Kara’s hanging lamp and it glistens off of her white, heavy grin. She has deep dimples and a long toss of dark hair, there’s something about the hard angle of her nose, her brow, that makes her desperately alluring. She looks despairingly at ease in the apartment, still smiling as her eyes flash to Lena. The stranger’s easy slouch and the casual slant of her leather jacket across her shoulders is enough to make Lena feel a shallow pang of jealousy. The woman tilts her head at Kara, holding up her hand.

“Keys, babe.”

Kara huffs, digging into her pocket and throwing a ring of keys at the woman’s hand with a little more force than necessary. She catches them easily, directing that Cheshire cat grin at Kara and Lena, still frozen in the doorway.

“Well, my work here is done,” she says, grin twisting into a smirk as she regards them, “you two be good.” She stops at Kara, leaning in fast to bite a kiss at Kara’s jaw, laughing as Kara caves, smiling despite herself, remembering at the last minute to shove her away. She brushes by Lena in the doorway, teasingly close, regarding her for a beat when she reaches the hallway. Lena thinks she must like what she sees because she nods with some satisfaction, waggling her fingers at Kara in wave and winking at Lena. Then, without another word, she stalks down the hallway without looking back, tossing the keys in her palm.

There is a lull after she leaves, and only after Lena takes another hesitant step into the apartment does Kara seem to remember herself.

“Oh!” she says, rushing to set the wine on the counter before grabbing for Lena, so stuck between helping her out of her jacket and taking the items out of her hands that she just settles her hands on Lena’s waist instead.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Lena says, trying to ignore the burning heat of Kara’s hands through her skirt, “but I brought you these.”

She presents the flowers, luckily more smoothly than she did the wine. Kara’s eyes immediately widen and she drops her hands from Lena’s hips to take them, cradling the blooms in her arms.

“For me?” she breathes, “They’re beautiful.”

Lena can feel her face soften and she reaches out to tug at Kara’s collar. “A beautiful gift for a beautiful hostess.” It’s cheesy, verging on awful, but Kara’s eyes get impossibly big, mouth falling into a perfect circle.

“You are—” she starts, gaze darting back down to the flowers and then over to the wine, “such a charmer.”

Lena smiles, shrugging out of her jacket, “I do what I can.” She drapes her jacket over a chair, playing at casual, “So who was that earlier?”

Kara looks briefly confused, caught on tip-toe digging through a cabinet for a suitable vase. “Who?” her hands close around a tall glass jar and she drops back to her feet, face clearing, “Oh! Maggie?”

Lena crosses her arms over her chest, “I suppose.”

Kara laughs, filling the glass with water at the tap, “That’s Alex’s girlfriend, she’s so annoying.”

Lena feels herself release a breath she didn’t even know she was holding, “Is she now?”

Kara scrunches her face, “I mean not really, she’s kinda amazing and she makes Alex super happy but,” she shrugs, arranging the flowers in the vase, “she’s really annoying.”

Lena laughs, perching on the edge of an overstuffed chair in Kara’s living room, “So I’m getting that the consensus here is that she’s annoying.”

Kara exhales a hard sigh, stepping back to regard her work, a quick look of pleasure flashing across her face as she considers the carefully arranged flowers. “I mean, she was over to grab the keys to Alex’s bike.” Kara rolls her neck to face Lena with a look of amusement, voice lowering, “last time Alex was here she got so drunk Maggie had to come pick her up.” She laughs and it’s so infectious that Lena joins in even before she hears the punchline, “she spent the whole night happy-crying about how good the sex with Maggie is.”

Lena’s laughs harder, cupping her chin in her palm, eyes half-lidded as she regards Kara, “Well, everyone knows that girls do it better.”

Kara’s face freezes, the tips of her ears blushing red. “Right,” she says hastily, “so I hear.”

Lena files that information away for later. “So why is she annoying?”

Kara shrugs, “I was just telling her about how you were coming over and she started teasing me about—” Kara abruptly cuts off, shooting a brief look of alarm at Lena, “Stuff.”

Lena hums in sympathy and Kara relaxes.

“But I’m so glad you’re here now,” Kara says brightly, “you can help me make dinner.”

Lena stands, “Of course, anything.”

Kara is back on tip-toe, arms stretching high over her head, wrestling a variety of bowls and measuring cups out of her cupboards. Lena studies her hungrily, admiring the curve of her ass in her tight-fitting slacks, a white polka-dot collared shirt tucked neatly into the waist, a skinny brown leather belt cinching it tight. Her hair is piled high on her head, and Lena finds her hands itching to touch and tug and devour. Sometimes Lena can’t imagine what has happened to her self-control.

Kara lays out her tools on the counter, grabbing potatoes and flour from the top of her fridge. She turns, reaching out a hand toward Lena, “Come here.”

Lena crosses the room to her, sliding her hand into Kara’s. Kara tugs her to her side, fingers warm, intertwining with her own. They are shoulder to shoulder now and Lena can smell Kara’s perfume, can feel the heat of her skin, their mesmerizing closeness becomes a tangible ache. If Kara notices how close they are, she says nothing about it, instead turning her head and speaking softly into Lena’s ear.

“Cleanliness first, humans get sick so easily.” She guides their joined hands to the sink, turning on the faucet and slathering them with soap. Lena laughs in surprise, and Kara turns to look at her, faux-stern, “Take this seriously, Lena.”

Lena arranges her mouth into a solemn line, nodding deeply. “Sorry, Ms. Danvers.”

Kara rubs Lena’s hands with the suds, their skin sliding against each other’s, her fingers pressing gentle at the plush of Lena’s palm, the taught skin below her joints. Once their hands are completely slick with soap, Kara directs them back underneath the warm spray, still smoothing strokes over Lena’s hands even after the soap has washed away.

Lena nudges even closer, until she can feel the heat radiating off of Kara’s skin. Lena has noticed that Kara always runs hot, like the sun’s heat is ever-present under the flawless soft-smooth of her skin. Lena swallows hard, arching her chin to catch Kara’s eyes.

“You’re so hot,” she says, voice catching in her throat.

Kara grins, “How forward.” She unlinks their hands, turning off the faucet and flicking droplets of water at Lena’s face. They catch on Lena’s cheeks, her eyelashes, and Kara bites at her lip, pleased.

Lena shoves her away, playing at annoyed, and Kara checks Lena’s hip affectionately with her own. Lena can feel a red flush creeping over her breasts, up her neck, and she clears her throat, trying to think of something to say to distract Kara from her obvious arousal. She casts her glance around the kitchen, at the potatoes and flour and eggs, gaze settling on a bowl of crisp, green peas and a block of creamy, white cheese.

“What are we making?”

Kara rolls her sleeves up to her elbow smoothly, long fingers making quick work of the clinging fabric. She eyes Lena’s dress, gaze catching just a beat too long on the sharp dive of the neckline. “We’re gonna make homemade Gnocchi.”

“Oh?” Lena says, impressed despite herself. Her culinary prowess starts and ends with canned soup.

Kara smiles, absently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “My mom,” she stops—corrects—“Eliza is Italian, she taught me and Alex how to make it.”

Lena tilts her head, “So your family is Italian?”

Kara shakes her head softly, smile creasing at the corners of her eyes, “I mean, I’m not. I was adopted.”

“Me too,” Lena says quietly, feeling that familiar, keen draw to Kara tugging hard just above her breastbone.

Kara nods, “I know.” She ducks her head, looking abashed, “I mean, you mentioned it in our first interview, I’m sorry that was so rude of me.”

Lena steps closer, shaking her head. “No, not at all.” She nudges at Kara’s shoulder, “You’re a great reporter.”

Kara ducks her head bashful, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Not according to Snapper.”

“He’s just a bully,” Lena says, laying a gentle hand on Kara’s shoulder, “now show me how we do this. I promise I’ll try not to ruin it.”

Kara laughs, shoulders square, her infectious confidence returning, “You’ll do great, I’m a pretty good teacher.”

**

Within minutes, Kara discovers that Lena is about as useless as she said she was, and fondly sets her up at the sink, grating cheese. She presses the grater into Lena’s hands, crowding her against the counter with her hips, settling behind her. Kara wraps her arms around Lena, breasts against her back, breath tickling Lena’s neck. Lena can feel Kara’s every inhale and exhale, the expanding and contracting of her ribs matching Lena’s stuttering breaths. She shivers despite the overwhelming warmth of Kara’s skin, dreamily pressing back harder against Kara’s slim frame. Kara covers Lena’s hands with her own, gently running a finger over the rough side of the grater. Lena goes to mimic her and Kara catches at her fingers before she can touch the metal.

“Don’t touch there,” Kara says softly, “You’ll hurt yourself.”

The press of her is so distracting, Lena forgets to wonder why Kara can.

Kara turns her face into Lena’s neck, lips brushing her skin now, and for a moment the room is entirely still as they both forget to breath. Then Kara is pulling away, jagged and sudden, moving a few feet down the counter before Lena has a chance to react.

Lena watches Kara cook in a daze, grater all but forgotten as she stares at the lean flex of Kara’s forearms as she kneads dough, flour rising in clouds to coat her fingers, her cheeks. Kara cuts the dough into neat bite-sized pieces, dropping it in the scalding water. Some splashes out of the pot to land on Kara’s bare wrists, and she has a delayed reaction. As if she needed a reminder to react to the burn.

Kara lets out an exaggerated yelp of pain, and Lena drops her grater, alarmed. “Kara, are you alright?” She makes to move toward her, but Kara waves her off, smiling.

“It’s okay,” she says, eyes liquid and warm behind her glasses, flattered by Lena’s concern, “I barely felt it.” She raises her wrist to her mouth, sucking at the place where the water splattered her skin. Lena watches her lips wrap around the skin of her arm, sees a hint of pink tongue, the glint of teeth, and hopes that if she faints, Kara will catch her.

Kara eventually drops her arm from her mouth, turning back to the boiling pot to poke at the pillows of dough with a fork. She glances at Lena, “How’s that cheese coming?”

Lena looks down into her bowl where she has grated a pathetically small pile. She sighs, exasperated. “I can build an engine from scratch,” she says, dropping the grater in the sink, “I can run a major corporation, and I can’t grate a pile of cheese.

Kara giggles as she sets a frying pan onto an empty eye of a stove, flicking on the gas with her wrist. “Don’t worry,” she says, reaching out a hand to Lena distractedly, “It’s endearing.”

Lena steps closer to her, and Kara’s fingers settle at her waist. Her eyes are still on the stove and Lena wonders if Kara even notices what she is doing.

Lena tilts her head, lowering her voice into something sultry, smooth as the oil Kara coats across the simmering pan. “It’s really admirable, how good you are at cooking,” she pauses, “how hard you work.”

Kara does look up now, noticing her own hand on Lena’s waist and jerking back faster than she had when she was actually burned. Her cheeks tint pink and her eyebrows jump. “It’s really nothing,” she says, voice more stutter than words.

Lena smirks, pleased to again have the upper hand. She presses in close, a hand on Kara’s neck, fingers stroking at the curls of hair that have escaped Kara’s ponytail. Kara shivers, eyes fluttering closed, lashes against her cheek, and yeah, this is more like it. Lena starts to lean in, ready to press her mouth against Kara’s cheek, her lips, at this point any skin she can find, but then Kara yelps, eyes shooting open.

“The Gnocchi!” she says, grabbing for a spoon, rescuing the floating pieces of dough from the pot. She stares down at them with concern, lips pursed in a pout, “I almost ruined them.”

Lena steps back with a sigh, more amused than anything, heading back to her sink.

“I’ll finish the cheese.”

**

Dinner itself started out well. Lena compliments the food until Kara shushes her, the tips of her ears turning the same shade as Lena’s lipstick. “It’s all in the perfectly grated cheese, really,” Kara says, waving her off with a laugh.

They sit across from each other at Kara’s rough-hewn wood table, the flowers beside them and full glasses of wine in between. Kara gets sauce on her cheek and misses it every time she wipes her face, eventually missing so egregiously that Lena is doubled over the table in laughter. She thinks she could happily stay in the warm bubble of the meal forever.

Then the conversation shifts to Supergirl and, like almost everything else in Lena’s life, it quickly falls apart.

“No one overlooks the Luthor name for long,” Lena says offhandedly, pushing her plate to the side, “not even Supergirl.”

Kara frowns, looking almost defensive, “What does that mean?”

Lena looks up, surprised at the sharp note of defiance in Kara’s tone. “I just mean that everybody makes assumptions and—”

“I haven’t,” Kara says, cutting her off, “I don’t.”

The blood spilled by Lena’s family has turned this subject into a bruise, a topic of almost constant consideration, a blight on Lena’s life ever since Lex’s first slaughter. She can’t help the surge of annoyance and dissent that jumps into her throat, choking her.

“You did,” Lena says, voice turning sharp, “That first article you wrote—”

“It got cut,” Kara says, “I didn’t even—”

“But you still wrote it.” Lena swallows hard, trying to calm herself down, “Being a Luthor is practically a death sentence in this town, I’m just trying to survive.”

She sees Kara take a deep breath as well, fingers unlocking from her iron grip on the table. The look on Kara’s face—indignation and pride communicated by a tilted chin and locked jaw—is so familiar that Lena feels memory tug hard at the back of her mind. She brushes it aside, more concerned with the next words to come out of Kara’s mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Kara finally says, voice soft, careful, “I can’t imagine carrying that burden.”

Lena tilts her eyes down, embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped.” She looks up, trying to catch Kara’s eye. “In all honestly, Supergirl has been nothing but kind to me.” She hesitates, “I guess I’m just always waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Kara still won’t look at her and Lena tries again, pleading. “It’s just, she’s an alien and—”

“Is that a problem?” Kara says, voice cutting and low. Her tone is tipping close to dangerous, and Lena almost startles back.

“Of course not,” Lena says, “I’ve just—” She closes her eyes, trying to collect her thoughts. “I grew up being told bedtime stories about the atrocities aliens have committed against us, about the evil that comes from beyond the stars.”

Kara’s face is so pale, Lena thinks it’s a wonder she can’t see through her. “And do you believe them?”

“No,” Lena says softly, then firmer, “No.” She reaches out a hand for Kara, “Supergirl has saved my life almost more time than I can count now, there is so much good in her.” She winces, withdrawing her hand when Kara doesn’t take it. “I fear she has far more good than I ever will.”

Kara does look up now, that same ferocity in her eyes, but this time in Lena’s defense. “That isn’t true,” she says fiercely, “you are so good.” And then she is reaching out, grabbing Lena’s hand, squeezing almost too tight, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.” She smiles shakily, “This is obviously a sore topic for both of us.”

Lena nods, embarrassed and a little disappointed at the turn the conversation has taken. “I know you and Supergirl are close, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

Kara looks guilty, biting at her bottom lip nervously. She hesitates before she speaks, as if debating her next words carefully. “Do you like her? Supergirl, I mean?”

Lena feels her stomach drop, her heart beating so hard she wonders if it will break through the fragile cage of her chest. This question, from Kara of all people, is almost too much to bear.

“I do,” Lena says softly, “I really, really do.” She closes her eyes, feeling more than remembering the palpable ache of Supergirl’s gaze, starlit and enthralling, her entire existence a Siren’s call: Enchanting and inevitable, but sure to lead to Lena’s ruin. “She’s irresistible.”

Lena hadn’t quite meant to say the last words out loud and the expression that flits across Kara’s face in their wake is indecipherable.

Kara stands, grabbing at Lena’s plate and swatting her away when she tries to help. She crosses to the kitchen, stacking the plates in the sink, her back to Lena when she asks: “And do you like me?”

Lena twists in her seat to look at her, studying the shape of her shoulder blades through her thin shirt, captivated with the play of fabric over her muscle and bone. When Kara finally turns to look at her, once again bashful and shy, Lena just smiles, stretching out a hand.

“What do you think?”

Kara lets Lena lead her to the couch, settling into the cushions side by side. Lena is a little too close to be considered platonic, knee pressed against Kara’s thigh, her hand wrapping intimately around Kara’s bicep. The windows of Kara’s apartment are cracked, letting in the last vestiges of the evening sun and a cool, sharp smelling breeze.

Lena uses it as an excuse to snuggle in closer, infatuated with Kara’s shy resistance, her hands tentative as they settle on Lena’s leg.

“Is this okay?” Kara whispers, hand inching higher.

Lena hums her assent, settling the pads of her fingers at Kara’s jaw, tilting her head toward her. She rubs her cheek along the smooth plane of Kara’s shoulder, arching up until she can nuzzle against Kara’s neck, her cheek, the down-soft wisps of hair that frame her face, curled from the memory of the stove’s eager heat. Kara giggles, hand tensing on Lena’s thigh, a blush creeping up her neck.

“You’re like a cat,” she says, a faint undercurrent of wonder in her voice, like she can’t believe the night has brought them here. Lena wants to laugh at her virtue, her innocence. Kara plays the part so convincingly, as though there was any doubt they would end up here, on this couch, heart beats stuttering in a crescendoing concerto as they lean ever-close.

Lena murmurs nonsense against Kara’s skin, nosing hard where her pulse beats heavy underneath the jut of her collarbone.

“You just feel so nice,” Lena whispers. Kara’s hand tightens on Lena’s thigh, so hard that Lena wonders if she will bruise. “Your heart is beating so fast,” Lena says, feeling it speed up further as every syllable drags her lips against the fabric of Kara’s shirt.

“So is yours,” Kara says, eyes shut tight, lips barely moving. Lena is so taken with the smell and feel and press of her, that she forgets to ask how Kara could possibly know.

Lena strokes at Kara’s jaw, coaxing her head down to meet hers, their foreheads knocking, Kara’s eyes half-lidded and her breath stuttering raggedly from parted lips. Lena can almost taste her.

Kara’s phone rings. The startling blare jolts them apart, and they freeze, minds cloudy and awareness dulled. Lena can’t even place the noise until Kara finally digs the offending phone out of her pocket, jabbing at the ‘answer call’ button with far more force than necessary.

“Alex,” Kara says, her voice this husky low Lena doesn’t think she’s heard before, “this better be good.” The voice on the other line is indistinct to Lena, but she watches Kara’s face change, closing in on itself, resigned and weary. “Yes of course,” Kara says into the phone, pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, “I understand.” She hangs up, dropping her phone to the couch and looking at Lena solemnly, apologetic.

Lena clears her throat, scooting backward against the arm of the couch, smoothing her skirt where it had ridden up under the hot press of Kara’s hand. “You have to go, don’t you?”

Kara nods, “I have to go.”

There is a beat of silence, pregnant and stifling, and Lena wonders if they are ever going to talk about this.

Kara pushes off the couch, gesturing helplessly around the room. “Take your time, Lena, leave when you’re ready.” She runs a hand down her face, “I’m so sorry.”

Lena nods frantically, forcing a smile, “No, it’s so fine, I totally understand,” she says, even though she doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t.

Kara nods once, succinct, almost embarrassed, before she heads for the door, phone clenched in her palm. Lena thinks she hears a faint crunch of breaking glass but she’s sure she is imagining it. The door closes behind Kara and Lena is left alone, the empty apartment ringing with silence, the warmth following on Kara’s heels.

Lena turns to the window. Some part of her expects exactly what she sees: Sunset, the last rays of light evaporating like mist, gold and orange bleeding into grey. Lena closes her eyes, and when she opens them it is night, stars pricking up like wells of blood around the point of a needle.

Lena closes her eyes and when she opens them Kara is gone and the daylight has fled with her.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Lena doesn’t leave L-Corp until long after dark. She huddles at the curb in front of her building, minutes before midnight, shivering. Her driver was supposed to be here ten minutes ago, but the roads are empty. Lena checks her phone again, clicking it on and squinting at the over-bright flare of the screen, no texts and no calls, she closes her eyes with a sigh. She is standing in the watery light of a streetlamp, the rest of the street receding into shadow.

Smog hangs low over the city today, an unwelcome cover that presses darkness down towards the city like some manifest thing. Lena spares one more glance to the empty road before she starts to turn, content to wait out her driver in the well-lit L-Corp lobby.

She doesn’t make it a step.

The cold muzzle of a gun presses against her cheek, hard enough to cut the inside of her mouth against her own teeth. She tastes iron and salt, the shock of blood a sharp sting on her tongue. She drops her purse and phone to the sidewalk, and her phone bounces once before clattering to the pavement with a hollow crack. Lena’s heartbeat leaps to her ears as a rough hand grabs the back of her neck, pinching tight.

“Don’t move,” a voice hisses against her ear, rasping and wet. The barrel slides up to her cheekbone, and she whimpers at the feel of the cold steel against her skin. She jolts against the hold only to be grabbed tighter, the gun pressing hard enough to bruise.

“You’ll regret this,” Lena manages, blustering and small, pulse ringing loud enough that she is sure the whole city will hear, “you won’t get away with—”

The voice grunts, “Save the spiel.” She hears the sharp click of the safety being released and closes her eyes, keening low in her throat.

Lena can imagine everything that will happen, the inner workings of the firearm, the drop of the hammer, the spark of the primer, the bullet pushed down the barrel by the charge of the gunpowder. She can even picture the entry wound of the bullet, but her mind won’t let her carry the scenario all the way to the finale: to her body falling on the pavement, the blood, the pain, the dark. “Lex sends his regards,” the man says, and she feels more than hears the miniscule movement of his finger on the trigger.

Lena lashes back, elbowing him in the stomach, dropping to the ground as she hears a sharp grunt, covering her head with her arms as she struggles to get back to her feet. When she turns, the gun is on the pavement beside her, and a shadow looms above the man, malevolent and shadow draped, the eyes two red points of light in the dark.

It’s Supergirl, but Lena hardly recognizes her. Her face is twisted into a harsh grimace, and when she grabs the man by the neck she squeezes, fingers locking, so tight that Lena can hear the crunch of bone.

Lena scrambles to her knees, reaching out an unsteady hand to Supergirl’s towering form.

“Don’t kill him,” she rasps, “He doesn’t deserve it.”

Supergirl’s grip immediately softens at Lena’s words, fingers loosening, tossing the man onto the asphalt roughly, the crack of his head against the pavement echoing around the empty street. She reaches down and grabs the gun, snapping it in half effortlessly and throwing the pieces next to his prone form.

“The police are on their way,” Supergirl says, words mangled and rough, her face still molded into severe lines and strong-jawed anger.

She crosses to Lena quickly, scooping her into her arms easily, cradling her against her chest. Lena’s arms automatically wrap around Supergirl’s neck, burying her face in the warmth of Supergirl’s shoulder, cheek pressed hard over the crest.

Supergirl’s arms curl around her back, under her knees, and she ducks her head to nose at Lena’s hair, her mouth still a grimace, eyes wide and concerned.

“Are you okay?” she asks, all hush and worry, and the words sound so familiar that Lena feels them jolt through her, as real as Supergirl’s warm breath against her cheek.

“Yes,” Lena breathes, “yes, thank you.” She casts a final glance at the street, at the fragments of metal, the man’s bloodied form, the pressing shadows, advancing despite Supergirl’s presence. “Can we leave?” Lena closes her eyes with a shudder, “I can’t—”

“Of course,” Supergirl says, tensing her knees into a crouch. Before Lena can react, they are spiraling through the smog, bursting into the clear, star-lit night sky that canopies the city, above the industrial ruin that grounds it.

They’re flying. Despite herself, Lena lets out a quiet squeal of excitement, arms tightening around Supergirl’s neck, mouth falling open in sheer, uninhibited delight. Supergirl looks at her, no longer marred by consuming anger, the lines of her face clear and smooth in the silver light of the heavy moon. Lena stares at her, at her rescuer, her angel. Supergirl tilts her chin up, basking in the pale moonlight, her face lit in harsh contrasts, the hard line of her jaw and straight slope of her nose, lips just curves of shadow in the constellation’s cool glow.

“You saved me,” Lena whispers, almost unwilling to be overheard by their celestial audience.

Supergirl says nothing, and Lena can’t quite discern the look that flashes over her face: concern, heat, and vigilance, but above all: a hunger.

Supergirl kisses her.

The kiss is messy and hot and perfect, the answer to a question Lena feels she has spent an eternity asking. Lena tilts up her chin to meet her, and Supergirl cradles Lena close against the heady heat of her stone-etched skin. It is the kind of kiss that takes and takes and takes, Lena a willing sacrifice, opening her mouth to Supergirl’s lips, to the wet press of her tongue.

Supergirl kisses her like she has been waiting for hours, like Lena has been a teasing temptation, just inches out of reach.

Supergirl kisses her and Lena aches.

Her finger’s press soft at Lena’s thighs, at the curve of her side, as though she worries they will bruise. Lena thinks about Supergirl’s fingers pressing marks into her skin, imagines bruises on the soft flesh of her thighs, scratches down her back, and that liquid hot throb is back between her legs. Lena whines, low in her throat, arms tightening insistently around Supergirl’s neck, fingers tangling in her hair, digging hard against her scalp. She arches into Supergirl’s hold, willingly relinquishing herself to Supergirl’s arms, to her gravity, to her whim.

Lena bites hard at Supergirl’s lip, and only then does she jolt away. Her blue-rimmed pupils are blown wide, lips parted, hair mussed from the wind and Lena’s greedy hands. For a moment, she is fragmented, familiar, despairingly and achingly human, but then her face flickers and the mask is back: all silent vigil and immortal strength.

“I should have asked,” Supergirl says finally, almost a whisper, “I shouldn’t have—”

Lena cups a hand to her cheek, stroking at the soft arch of her cheekbone, fingers splaying wide over her star-saturated skin.

“You’re so warm,” Lena says, brow furrowing now, “you feel like—” The tug of memory is back, and she feels the itch of an epiphany, just on the outskirts of her mind.

Supergirl’s eyes snap wide, and she shakes her head quickly, as though she knows what Lena is trying to remember. “I have to take you back,” Supergirl says, suddenly sharp, “somewhere safe.” Her face hardens, “What happened tonight to you can never happen again.” She tightens her grip on Lena and plunges back toward the city, cape snapping. Lena closes her eyes against the wind, burying her head again in Supergirl’s shoulder, stomach swooping.

Supergirl only stops once, lowering her mouth close to Lena’s ear, asking directions to her apartment in a low murmur. They alight on Lena’s balcony gently, and Supergirl hesitates a beat before lowering Lena to her feet, keeping a steady hand at the small of her back, anticipating Lena’s momentary stumble.

“It’s like I have sea legs,” Lena says with a smile.

Supergirl smiles in return. “Sky legs,” she jokes, looking immensely pleased when Lena laughs. Supergirl drops her hands to her hips, the motion feeling forced in the after-glow of their kiss, more like play-acting than any true show of heroics. “Are you safe here?”

Lena ducks her head in a nod, “My security system is state of the art.” She holds up a hand before Supergirl can cut her off, “I’ll re-double my personal security, I know I got lazy.” She turns to gaze off her balcony, the view miniscule when compared with the stretch of the sky from Supergirl’s arms, “Lex has been in prison for so long sometimes I forget how tightly he holds onto his vendetta.”

Supergirl steps in closer, a strong hand finding its way to Lena’s shoulder, a small gesture of comfort. “Our newfound alliance couldn’t have helped.”

Now that Lena is grounded, the stars once again light-years away, the events of the night hit her with remarkable clarity. She almost died tonight and Supergirl saved her. Supergirl saved her and kissed her and—Kara.

Lena remembers Kara in a jolt of guilt and butterflies, a near sickening combination. It’s not as if she had forgotten her, but in-between the near death experience and the bite of Supergirl’s mouth, reality had blurred away to some harlequin romance novel fantasy. Lena turns abruptly, shrugging off Supergirl’s hand, fumbling for the keys to her balcony door until she remembers—of course—they are in her purse. Her purse that is lying in the middle of National City, next to two halves of gun and a hired killer’s unconscious body.

She groans, pressing her palm to her forehead. Supergirl turns to her, concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

“My keys are in my purse, which is probably a part of a crime scene right now.”

Supergirl’s brow furrows and she moves to the balcony door, grasping the handle. “I can just—” the muscles in her arms flex, and Lena lunges forward, grabbing at her wrist, stopping her from wrenching the door off its hinges.

“No!” she says breathless, “You’ll set off like a billion alarms and I just can’t deal with that right now.”

Supergirl drops her hand from the handle, looking chagrined before they both become keenly aware of the intimacy of Lena’s fingers, wrapped around her pulse. There is a beat of silence, the seconds charged, before Supergirl’s eyes drop to Lena’s lips, and she’s leaning in again. Lena almost lets her, almost forgets herself again to Supergirl’s magnetic pull and teasing mouth, but she deflects at the last minute, her hand reaching out to press at Supergirl’s chest, stopping her.

Supergirl immediately steps away, hands shooting behind her back, lowering her gaze. “I am so sorry, I don’t know why I—”

“It’s okay,” Lena cuts in, closing her eyes, breathing heavy. She takes a slow step back, trying to distance herself from the object of her temptation, from Supergirl’s kiss-bitten lips and careful, chivalrous hands. “There’s just,” Lena says, stumbling here, a part of her desiring nothing more than to close the gap, for Supergirl to shatter her apartment windows and press her into bed. But. The other part of her thinks of Kara and aches and aches of aches, remembering her sunlight smile and irresistible affections. Lena is pulling so hard in different directions, she wonders if she just might split in two. “There’s someone else,” Lena finally says, opening her eyes, “the girl I told you about before she’s…” she trails off here, not sure how to capture Kara in a single word, “she’s unavoidable, like,” another stumble, “like sunrise.”

Supergirl’s eyes blink wide, lips parting. Lena expected her to look any number of things, but entirely enchanted was not one of them. There is a long silence, both of them studying the other, caught in the limbo of the mid-winter balcony. Finally, Supergirl speaks. “Is there somewhere I can take you?”

Lena looks away, embarrassed. “I don’t know anywhere I can go,” she pauses, “Except Kara’s.”

Supergirl inhales quickly, seeming to choke on her own breath, coughing awkwardly into her fist. Lena doesn’t know if she’s ever seen Supergirl so flustered, the humanizing effect is utterly charming.

“Right,” Supergirl says, clearing her throat, “Kara’s. I can do that. Very easily. I can very easily do that.”

Lena can’t tell if Supergirl is delirious or if it’s just her own lack of sleep and attempted murder catching up to her. She chooses to think it’s the latter. She takes a few steps toward Supergirl, too exhausted to worry about the consequences, winding her arms around her neck.

“Can we go please?” The idea of seeing Kara is a salve that slows her steadily rising panic. She thinks to be safe and hidden in Kara’s homey apartment is exactly what she needs.

Supergirl collects herself, face once again impenetrable and stone-still. She wraps her hands at Lena’s waist, and Lena lets herself nuzzle against Supergirl’s neck. Supergirl’s hands settle possessively around her, and Lena presses a single kiss against the divot of Supergirl’s throat. Lena feels her shiver and decides to let things be, just for a little while.

**

They stand in front of Kara’s door, stilted and suddenly distant. Lena pulls herself up to her full height, and Supergirl does the same, arms crossed over her chest, looking entirely regal and alien and a thousand miles away.

“I should thank you again,” Lena says, “for saving my life.”

Supergirl’s brow furrows, jaw a ripple of muscle under taught skin. “I will always save you,” she says fiercely, and the vehemence of the statement seems to startle them both.

Lena takes a half step forward, sure she will soon regret what she is about to do. She does it anyway, rocking onto her tiptoes and pressing her lips against Supergirl’s in a hard kiss. Supergirl gives in immediately, hands curling at Lena’s waist, nose nudging soft at Lena’s cheek. Lena keeps her eyes closed even after Supergirl pulls away, allowing herself a beat of silence before she opens her eyes to the empty apartment hallway. Lena raises her fingers to lips, feeling the already fading imprint of the kiss.

There and then, with no warning at all, gone.

**

It takes Kara a few minutes to answer the door. Lena can’t blame her, its well after one a.m. now, and the combined guilt of knocking at her door before dawn and the forbidden kiss is just another facet of Lena’s exhaustion.

Lena feels that familiar bite of anger that so often comes hand in hand with her exhaustion, her pride and ego railing against her own mortality. Lena wonders at this night, at the eclipse of it. A gun to her head, the cool familiarity of imminent death, and a hero’s mouth swallowing her own, three thousand feet in the air.

Lena thinks that if she were a god-fearing person this day would have her on her knees.

But.

The only demons Lena believes in are her own.

When Kara does open the door, her hair is piled messy on her head, glasses askew, eyebrows creased in concern. Lena doesn’t realize how wholly tired she is until she sees her, practically stumbling over the threshold and into her arms. Kara immediately catches her up in a hug, hands locking at Lena’s waist. She smells sharp, like deodorant and toothpaste, but there are undertones of nighttime as well, the clear scent of winter air. Lena buries her head into her shoulder and takes a shuddering breathe, realizing that this is the first time she has ever seen Kara at night.

“What’s wrong, Lena?” Kara says, clutching at her tighter, and if it sounds like she is reading off of a poorly written script, Lena is too drowsy to notice.

“A man tried to kill me,” Lena says into her shoulder, immediately regretting it because it means Kara pulls away, holding her at arm’s length like she is checking for injury. “He failed obviously,” Lena says, trying out a smirk.

Kara clucks her tongue, hands moving to cup at Lena’s face, moving it left and then right, stroking light at her cheekbones, across her forehead, running velvet soft fingers over her lips and her eyelids. When she stops, Lena’s face still cupped in her hands, Lena laughs.

“Do I seem to be all in one piece?” A Pause. “Thank you for answering the door, I wasn’t sure where else to go.”

Kara huffs, annoyed. “I can’t believe you.”

Lena takes a step back, “Can’t believe me?”

“You’re so casual about this.”

Lena shrugs, “I’m a Luthor. I live on death threats.”

Kara’s brow furrows and she pouts her lips, staring at Lena for a long bothered moment. She eventually releases Lena anyway, moving toward the kitchen to pour a glass of water. Lena takes this chance to study her closer, curious to see what Kara looks like, sleep rumpled and interrupted. In all honesty, Kara looks a bit of a mess. She is dressed in overlarge men’s boxers and a snap-up pajama top, the buttons askew, patches of skin showing through the holes of the mis-buttoned fabric. Lena’s eyes catch on the weight of Kara’s breasts under the thin shirt and she immediately looks away, feeling this awful cocktail of guilty, turned on, and criminally exhausted. Kara returns with the glass of water, long legs flexing with every step. Lena averts her eyes from the cut of Kara’s calves as well, the ache between her legs back with a heartbeat pulse. She accepts the water, drinking in small, polite sips, watching Kara watch her.

Kara absently reaches out a hand, brushing at Lena’s shoulder, before she turns toward her bedroom, calling out something about clothes over her shoulder. Lena sets down the water and follows, though she isn’t sure if she is supposed to. The click of her heels is over-loud in contrast to the silent pad of Kara’s bare feet.

Kara’s bedroom is small, a dresser and a bed, with the same eclectic arrangement of art and knick-knacks as the rest of Kara’s apartment. Lena thumbs over a small glass figurine on Kara’s dresser, eyes drawn back to those tantalizing, incriminating patches of Kara’s skin, to the mussed blankets of Kara’s bed.

Lena thinks that Kara has a habit of collecting beautiful things.

Kara roots through her dresser drawers, tongue between her teeth, before pulling back victorious with two items held in her hands. She stands, turning to Lena, seeming surprised to find her so close, but far from perturbed, fingers lingering on Lena’s as she hands over the clothes.

Lena unfolds the shirt: navy blue with “Danvers” printed across the back and a school logo on the breast, the fabric soft and well-worn. Lena bites a lip into her mouth, appraising Kara slowly, enjoying the pink blush that stains her cheeks.

“Did you play a sport in high school, Ms. Danvers?”

Kara ducks her head, cheeks darkening, messing with the stem of her glasses. “It’s from the academic bowl team, actually,” Kara says, somewhat embarrassed. “I was never very athletic.”

Lena drags her eyes down Kara’s thighs, the tight muscle of her legs, the long flex of her fingers where they tangle in the fabric of her boxers. “Somehow I doubt that,” Lena says slowly, she presses in close, feeling the heat of Kara’s body, smelling the toothpaste and nighttime again and—buried deep, maybe in her detergent—something fruity. There’s that déjà vu and—Lena presses her cheek close against Kara’s own, whispering in her ear, “But I like smart girls best, anyway.” Kara jars back, flustered, and Lena grins, all canines and bared teeth, her exhaustion making her a loopy kind of forward.

Kara directs her to the bathroom, pressing a spare toothbrush in Lena’s hand before muttering something about privacy and moving to wait for her in the kitchen. Lena stares after her before closing the door with a soft click, toeing off her heels and unzipping her skirt. She pauses then, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror. She looks vulnerable and young, mascara smudged, lipstick worn off by Supergirl’s mouth and teeth and tongue. Lena shivers.

Lena pulls down her skirt, scraping her tights down her legs. She pulls her shirt over her head, unclasps her bra, and is struck by the fact that she has no plan at all. She can feel it still, that pull to Supergirl, a tangible and unearthly thing. Lena closes her eyes and sees her face, framed in silver, a goddess. Supergirl is power and virtue and strength and Lena hungers for it.

But then. Kara Danvers waits outside the room, long stretches of warm skin and an insatiable smile. Kara is intelligent and lovely and kind, and she looks at Lena like she wants to know her, not like she already thinks she does. If Supergirl is a deity, Kara is a home. Lena can smell her on the shirt she pulls over her head, can feel the clinging press of her in the miniscule sleep-shorts she rolls down her hips. Lena thinks about Kara Danvers and she wants and wants and wants.

Lena closes her eyes. Opens them. Exhales slowly and faces herself in the mirror. Lena Luthor has a plan: she’ll take things slow, get to know Kara, finally get those drinks, and see how things unfold. She will operate with honesty and openness, not make any rash decisions or rush into anything.

What happened between her and Supergirl tonight was an adrenaline fueled fluke, Lena vows to put it behind her.

Lena looks again at her reflection and feels confident that everything will work out.

**

Kara is leaning against the kitchen counter when Lena leaves the bathroom. Her head is tipped back, a water glass to her lips, and Lena watches her throat move as she drinks. She seems to have unbuttoned more of her shirt, like she was half-way to fixing the problem and got distracted. Lena can see the smooth valley between her breasts, a hint of cleavage, and the hard toned muscle of her stomach. Kara puts down the glass, turning to face Lena with a soft smile.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, voice heavy with care and concern, glasses slipping down her nose.

Lena decides that her plans can honestly just go fuck themselves.

She crosses to the kitchen in two strides, cupping the back of Kara’s neck with one hand, the other splaying against her cheek. She hesitates just long enough to see Kara’s eyes flash wide, startled but unmistakably hungry, and then she is tugging Kara down into a kiss.

Kara opens her mouth to Lena’s tongue, hands fisting in Lena’s borrowed shirt, making a noise low in her throat when Lena laps into Kara’s mouth. Lena kisses Kara like this is her last chance, and maybe it is. Lena almost died tonight, and their long string of almost-kisses have culminated to this: the contented hum Kara makes against her lips, Kara’s fingers resting above the jut of Lena’s hipbones, the uncomfortable bulk of Kara’s glasses in-between them.

At first, Kara seems content to follow, nudging into the hard press of Lena’s mouth, her hands solid and unmoving on Lena’s hips, but when Lena reaches to remove Kara’s glasses, she pulls away, spinning them, pressing Lena hard against the counter. Kara drags her lips down Lena’s jaw, nosing against her neck, sucking hard over Lena’s pulse, lapping at her collarbone, at the soft skin below her ear. Lena keens, wild and high, and Kara’s hands slide down her hips, fitting under thighs, boosting her to the counter as though Lena’s weighs nothing.

Kara bites at Lena’s neck and she whines, head thrown back, mind foggy with pleasure. Lena can’t believe she spent all this time letting Kara interview her when she could have been pressing her down onto her office couch instead, she thinks every second of her life that hasn’t been spent kissing Kara Danvers has been a complete and colossal waste. But Kara seems to have mistaken Lena’s noise for pain and she jolts back, eyes blown wide behind her glasses’ lens, hair falling unruly around her face.

“Did I hurt you?” she asks quickly, hands retreating from Lena’s bare thighs, face drawn with worry.

“God no,” Lena says, voice more a sigh than anything. She catches at Kara’s wrists, dragging her hands back down to her thighs, higher than Kara originally had them, fingers creeping under the hem of her sleep shorts. They regard each other for a moment more, and as much as Lena appreciates the reverence on Kara’s face, she gets impatient, hands moving to fumble with the buttons on Kara’s shirt. “Is this okay?” she asks carefully, fingers slowing, eyes searching Kara’s face, “We can stop.”

Kara blinks once slow, lashes fluttering against her cheek. She adjusts her hands, fingers splaying across the tops of Lena’s legs, thumbs stroking circles just inside Lena’s thighs. The look on her face says that she know exactly what she’s doing. “Kiss me again, please?”

Lena all but rips the rest of the buttons off, pushing Kara’s shirt down her shoulders as she crashes their lips back together, nipping hard at Kara’s lower lip. She maps the ripple of muscle across Kara’s back with her hands, thumbing at her shoulder blades, feeling the feral flex and shift of Kara’s spine beneath her fingertips.

Kara strokes at the top of Lena’s thighs, scraping her nails just hard enough that Lena shudders, pressing Kara impossibly close. Lena keeps her eyes firmly closed, worried that if she opens them, the sight of Kara between her legs, topless, hands inching inside her legs, will set her on fire. Lena moves to kiss at the hinge of Kara’s jaw, legs wrapping around Kara’s hips.

Things are escalating almost too quickly, and Kara is gasping against her ear. Lena feels herself ignite, feels herself slick against her own underwear, the heat and throb almost too much to bear.

Lena bites just over Kara’s pulse and Kara curses, the language so unexpected from Kara’s mouth that Lena jars, humming her approval into her neck. Kara slides her hands back under Lena’s thighs, hitching her tighter, lifting her off the counter easily and stumbling across the apartment, Lena still sucking kisses against her neck. They fall onto the couch together, and Kara laughs breathlessly into Lena’s hair.

Lena pulls back, just far enough to look at her, and blinks hard at what she sees: an angel, mussed hair a halo, eyes glazed and dark behind the glint of her glasses. Lena knows that she doesn’t believe in God, but the way Kara’s gaze consumes her, tucking her bottom lip into her own mouth nervously, is heaven-sent. Lena arches up, feeling the press of Kara’s breasts against her chest, nipping a kiss at Kara’s chin.

“Who knew that Kara Danvers had a mouth on her?” Lena husks, enjoying the pink tint in Kara’s cheeks, the way she ducks her head to hide against Lena’s chest. Lena hums happily, feeling Kara unwind against her, relaxing her weight against Lena carefully, arms still braced at her sides. Lena wriggles underneath her, tapping at her arm with one finger. “You can lay on me, Kara,” she says softly.

Kara mumbles something unintelligible against Lena’s skin and Lena laughs at the murmur of Kara’s lips against her.

She strokes through Kara’s hair carefully, “What was that, love?”

Kara pulls back, ever-slightly, murmuring again: “I don’t wanna crush you.”

Lena laughs, “You won’t, I promise.” It takes a minute, but Kara relaxes her arms, squirming on top of Lena to get comfortable. Her thigh accidentally slips between Lena’s legs, jolting hard at Lena’s center, and Lena hisses, more a whine than anything. Kara freezes, going cartoonishly still.

“I hurt you,” Kara says, worried and tight, like she expected this all along.

Lena fights to keep her voice steady, exercising every ounce of her self-control to keep from grinding down on Kara’s thigh. She is uncomfortably wet, the ache a palpable pounding in her head, but she would die before making Kara uncomfortable. “You didn’t hurt me,” Lena says, her voice strained, eyes pinched shut, “But your leg—”

Kara looks down between them, “Oh,” she says, then louder, “Oh!” She adjusts carefully, the shift still accidentally providing friction that has Lena gritting her teeth. “I’m so sorry,” Kara says, then—curious—“did that feel good?” She says it innocently, more like she’s conducting research than anything, but the insinuation of the phrase makes Lena clench.

She opens her eyes, meeting Kara’s gaze with annoyance, trying to mask her amusement. “Yes, Kara. That felt good.”

Kara ducks her head again, and Lena can feel her smile against the hollow of her neck. Lena swirls light strokes up her back, feeling Kara ease further against her. She is molten and pliable, breath shifting to sleepy murmurs the longer they recline on the plush of the couch. It must be past three now, and Lena feels her eye-lids droop with exhaustion. She gets enough energy to tap at Kara’s back, a little disbelieving that she has a gorgeous woman half-naked on top of her and they are both falling asleep. Kara shifts sleepily, rubbing her cheek against Lena’s chest, muttering nonsense in lieu of answering.

“Kara,” Lena tries again, “do you want to keep kissing or go sleep in your bed?” She shifts underneath her, working to unpin an arm, “Because I think we’re not gonna be happy in the morning if we fall asleep on the couch.”

Kara lifts her head when Lena said her name and gives Lena a sleepy smile, cheek creased from Lena’s shirt. “Kissing, please.”

Lena hums happily, tapping her lips playfully with a finger as Kara readjusts. Kara kisses Lena sloppy, sleep-loose and messy, and Lena lets her, aching despite herself. After a few minutes of quiet, wet kissing, Lena is pretty sure Kara dozes off, lips still moving. Lena taps again at Kara’s arm and Kara pulls back, squinting at Lena guiltily. “Okay, sleep now please.”

Lena smiles, “You have to get up first, cutie.”

Kara starts to sit up, remembers her bare chest, and immediately ducks back down. Lena laughs, bringing up one hand to cover her eyes, “I won’t look.”

Kara mumbles something and rolls off the couch, padding across the room to retrieve her shirt. Lena opens her eyes when she hears the soft whisper of fabric, watching Kara button her shirt, correctly this time. Kara looks up to find Lena’s eyes on her and smiles, soft and shy, straightening her glasses. Lena sits up, stretching her arms over her head, ignoring the dull throb between her legs.

“So am I allowed to sleep in your bed, or is that crossing a line?”

Kara huffs a laugh, shuffling back to the couch and taking Lena’s hand loosely in her own, tugging her toward the bedroom. They hesitate in the doorway, regarding the bed, and Lena hooks her chin over Kara’s shoulder, “Do you have a side?”

Kara’s response is her collapsing onto the middle of the comforter, wriggling until she works her way under the covers. Lena lays down more carefully, fitting herself in the space to the left of Kara, not quite touching. She reaches out a hand, painting a finger down the bridge of Kara’s nose carefully.

“Was everything we did okay?” Lena asks quietly.

Kara pauses before answering, rolling to the side to switch off the light, removing her glasses and tossing them on the dresser. The room is dark but Lena can just make out Kara’s smooth profile, eyes blinking wide without the barrier of glasses between them. Kara edges closer, hand settling on Lena’s hip.

“Yes,” she bites at her lip, “It was more than okay.” She is silent for a beat, and even though Lena can’t quite make out details, she can feel Kara watching her. “Was it okay that we didn’t…” She trails off nervously, teeth still worrying at her bottom lip.

“What?” Lena says, “Have sex?”

Kara nods, a careful movement in the dark.

Lena nudges forward, softening her voice, feeling something break inside her at the question. “Of course,” she says, “You never have to do anything you don’t want to.” She smiles, “We don’t ever have to have sex if you don’t feel comfortable, it’s never a requirement.” Lena pauses, thinking. “We don’t even have to kiss again if you don’t want to.”

Kara gives a start next to her, and Lena laughs. “I definitely liked kissing,” Kara says. She lowers her voice, words coming out hesitant, “And I do want to have sex I mean,” she strokes over Lena’s hipbone, “I just—” Lena can see her shrug in the dark, “I don’t know how, not with a girl.”

Lena moves in close, pressing a kiss to Kara’s cheek, feeling her smile under her mouth, syrup sweet and innocent in the dark of the quiet bedroom. “I can show you anytime you want,” Lena whispers against her skin, “I have a feeling it won’t be a problem.” She inhales sharply, releasing the breathe with a heaving sigh, “You make me…”

Kara blinks, curious. “I make you…?”

Lena shakes her head, rolling onto her back, “You can fill in the blank, Kara.” She closes her eyes, her fatigue hitting her again, all at once. She falls asleep with Kara’s hand on her hip, stroking slow circles until she slips away.

* * *

It took Michelangelo over two years to create his David, and though the statue was carved from a single block of Tuscany marble, he was born rather than made: 17 feet of sculpted flesh, coaxed free from a block of stone.

Kara studies Lena’s profile in the dark. She traces a gentle finger down the straight, noble line of her nose, the sharp cut of her jawline, the perfect arched plush of her lips, an impossibly well-sculpted masterpiece, an angel in marble: set free. No work of art, Kara thinks, nothing shaped by Michelangelo or Da Vinci or any of the masters of the renaissance, could possibly compare to the woman beside her.

She is asleep, that much Kara can easily tell. Her breaths are even, heartbeat settled to a steady pound, skin soft and sleep-pliable under Kara’s hand. Lena is still and quiet, nothing like when they were kissing; nothing like the writhe and whine of her, arching under Kara’s willing touch, heartbeat spiking so fast that Kara had worried it would beat out of her chest. Kara can still smell the arousal on her, that faint human musk under her layers of carefully applied synthetic perfume.

She closes her eyes, unable to sleep despite her bone-deep exhaustion, forced to lie awake and grapple with the competing forces of guilt and lust and lies that writhe under her skin like some living thing.

Kara Danvers is not a very good liar. Especially when it’s a secret that she doesn’t want to keep. It isn’t fair, the deception of it all, and tonight has taken it a step too far, feeling more like trickery than a safety precaution. Lena’s well-being is Kara’s number one priority, but living like this: a double life, a Shakespearean drama of disguise and mistaken identity, feels like it will lead to their ultimate and untimely ruin.

Kara nuzzles in closer, watching the steady rise and fall of Lena’s chest, remembering the hard bite of Lena’s mouth against her neck, her throat, her lips.

For the first time in her life, Kara had wished she could bruise.

The thrill of Lena’s possession sends a spike of heat between her legs and Kara shivers, wondering when she became reduced to this lust addled thing, unable to think beyond the woman beside her.

Kara isn’t a fool. She knows that there is a danger in Lena, something cold and hard and removed, a history of blood and prejudice and ignorance that runs ever-parallel to Lena’s story. But then Kara thinks of Lena, clinging dark and trusting and lovely around her neck, the city spread below them, and knows that their stories run parallel, too.

A Super and a Luthor, sharing a fate greater than the bloodshed that precedes them.

Lena turns in the dark, murmuring through the fog of sleep, slipping a warm arm around Kara’s waist, nuzzling close, legs twining beneath the heavy ply of blankets. Kara blinks wide in the dim-lit shadows of her room, entranced by the breakable thing beside her. She can feel the delicate etching of Lena’s ribs through her shirt, can see a bruise blooming on her cheek from the harsh strike of the man’s gun.

Lena Luthor is at once entirely human and enchantingly mythic, a paradox of stone and flesh.

Kara Danvers lies in the dark for hours, and only one thing is utterly and despairingly clear: She has to tell her.


	5. Chapter 5

_Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner._

_\--J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan_

* * *

 

Lena wakes up sweltering. Sunlight slants jagged through parted curtains, falling across Lena’s face, forcing bleary eyes open. For a second, she struggles to place her location, still locked in a fog of sleep and heat. But the events of last night catch up with her fast, and her eyes blink wide, a flash of images barraging her mind and cutting through her stupor: an empty street, slick steel, Supergirl’s contorted face, the city laid out below her, that kiss, that kiss that kiss.

Lena realizes the reason for her excessive heat at about the same time she remembers being lifted onto a kitchen counter, lips sucking at her jaw: Kara, her body emitting the heat of a furnace, curled tight against Lena’s back.

Lena smiles despite herself, struggling to free herself from the over-warm embrace. She is impossibly charmed when Kara’s arms just tighten further, and she feels Kara’s legs slip between her own on top of mussed blankets, the extra layers kicked free during the night. Lena wriggles ungracefully, managing to turn in Kara’s arms, getting a quick glance at Kara’s sleep rumpled face before she nuzzles into Lena’s neck, huffing heavy breathes against her throat.

“Kara,” Lena sighs, scratching long strokes up Kara’s back, fingers slipping under her pajama shirt, “wake up.”

Kara grumbles unhappily against Lena’s skin, pulling her even closer, their bellies and breasts aligning, her knee sandwiched between Lena’s legs. Kara’s hands have slipped up the back of Lena’s t-shirt, and the splay of them, across the dimple of her back and along her spine, makes her shiver despite the heat.

“Kara,” Lena tries again, “I think you have work,” she ducks her head to nuzzle a kiss at the crown of Kara’s head, “and I know I definitely do.”

“Five more minutes,” is the answer mumbled, sleep-hoarse and low, into Lena’s neck.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Lena says.

“We both know that isn’t true,” Kara mutters, barely audible, and Lena laughs, delighted.

“C’mon,” Lena says, teasing, “I make a mean bowl of cereal.”

She thinks she hears a muffled laugh before Kara rolls away, sitting up with a low groan. She stretches facing away from Lena, the sharp line of her back drawing Lena’s eyes, her gaze skating hungrily over the skin bared by Kara’s raised arms. Kara stands, snagging her glasses and putting them on before she turns to Lena, bed-messy and grinning.

“You slept over,” she says, her smile pulling from her chin to her eyes, entirely and devastatingly charming.

Lena rolls to her side, propping her chin in one hand. “I slept over.”

Kara is still smiling when her eyes catch on the alarm clock on her dresser. Her face falls cartoonishly fast, slipping from elation to devastation in mere milliseconds.

“Is it eight already?” she whispers, somewhere in the realm of horrified.

Lena sits up, concerned. She reflexively reaches for her phone before remembering that it’s lying shattered somewhere in National City. “I suppose so?”

“Oh geez,” Kara hisses, “Oh gosh.” She makes a mad grab for some clothes, heading toward her bedroom door in a rush. “Editorial meeting is at 8:15,” she says, grabbing an only slightly rumpled button down off her bedroom floor, “Snapper is going to have me hunted for sport.”

Lena’s brow furrows, concerned. “I am so sorry, I—”

Kara looks at her, alarmed. “This isn’t your fault, Lena,” she bends to snag a pair of slacks from a dresser drawer, “I’m the idiot who forgot an alarm.”

Lena must still look guilty because Kara pauses her flurry of preparation to reach out a hand to her. Lena shuffles forward on the bed, sliding her palm against Kara’s, immediately calmed by the simple touch.

“You’ll come back here after work?” Kara says, squeezing her hand softly, “Just until you can get everything sorted out?”

Lena’s stomach swoops at idea of seeing Kara twice in one day, and she works to school her expression into something resembling a professional calm, at least as best she can do in a borrowed baggy t-shirt and tiny sleep-shorts.

“As long as I wouldn’t be imposing?”

“Never,” Kara says fiercely, and Lena jars back, the tone of Kara’s voice sounding unnervingly similar to—

Kara ducks in, pressing a fleeting kiss against Lena’s cheek before she’s rushing from the room, shedding clothes as she goes. “If Snapper kills me,” Kara calls from somewhere in the apartment, “tell Alex she can have my Xena DVDs.”

Lena only has time to laugh before she hears the apartment door slamming shut. She collapses back into the sheets with a smile, rolling to press her head into the pillow and smelling Kara, Kara, Kara.

**

When Lena gets back to Kara’s apartment after work, the sun has already begun its steep descent. The sky outside is rouged in orange and pink and a dark, unruly blue. Lena feels her footsteps speed of their own accord as she nears Kara’s door, work satchel slung over one shoulder and heart stuttering fast.

Lena wonders if they can pick up where they left off.

She tries the door knob, finding it unlocked and pushing it in slowly. At first she thinks no one is home. There is a silence to the apartment that comes ready-weighted with apprehension. The lights are mostly off but the slant of the waning sun illuminates the room in a dim golden glow, cutting easily through the cracked panes of the floor length window.

As always, Lena sees Kara first. She is standing, head bowed, in front of the window, face drawn in concentration, glasses pushed high up the bridge of her nose. Lena creeps nearer, loathe to disturb her apparent meditation. Her hair is mostly down, only a few disobedient strands clipped back. She isn’t wearing the clothes Lena thought she had left the apartment in, instead she is standing, lean and taught, in a neat blue-button up and tight corduroys. Lena wonders at the straight edges of her, the solid tilt to her chin so often disguised by a bright, inveterate smile.

The dying sunlight bathes her in a fading warmth, throwing her cheekbones and brow into a harsh contrast of shadow and light. Lena thinks she could stare forever at the woman before her, made immortal by the affections of the disappearing day.

“Kara,” Lena says, voice soft velvet in the undisturbed room, “is everything alright?”

Kara doesn’t startle like Lena expected, instead she just tips up her chin to meet Lena’s eyes, her own rimmed in a startling, uncharacteristic grief. She tries for a smile, but Lena can see the waver of anxiety in the tilt of her lips. Lena steps closer, slipping her bag from one shoulder, heart already breaking although Kara has yet to say anything at all. Kara breaks their gaze to look out the window again, the sun creeping ever-close to the dark silhouette of the horizon.

The sunset, usually so benign and striking, has a hint of a warning. Shadows replace light, creeping over the spread of the city, threatening to swallow it whole.

Lena bites at her lip, suddenly acutely uncertain, hands hesitant as she links them nervously. “The sun is going down,” she observes, the words pointedly unnecessary, “Is this the part where you leave me a glass slipper?” Lena tilts her head, “Do you have a pumpkin waiting?”

Kara doesn’t laugh. Instead, she turns to face Lena, sighing out a breath that it sounds like she’s been holding for a very long time. “I need to tell you something,” she says.

Lena swallows hard, crossing her arms over her chest, already preparing for the worst, emotions squared away and face still. “Of course, Kara.” She hopes her voice doesn’t betray the disquiet settling high in her chest.

Whatever she expected it wasn’t this: Kara reaching for her the collar of her shirt and beginning to snap open the buttons, one by one.

Lena scrunches her face, huffing out a laugh, “Kara?” she says, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this, but don’t you think—” She trails off as soon as she sees the first hint of blue spandex revealed beneath Kara’s trembling fingers.

Lena feels the world drop out from beneath her, and she staggers slightly, hand scrabbling to gain purchase on a dining room chair, anything to keep her upright. The entire crest is visible now, and Kara drops her hands, wrists hanging limp at her sides, defeat written in every line of her face, in every furrow of her brow.

In a single second everything becomes startlingly and totally clear. Lena’s face melts from reeling shock to a contortion of betrayal. She feels herself harden and simmer, her heart brittle enough to shatter, her jaw clenched in thin and absolute anger. She closes the distance between them, hand raised like she is going to strike, and Kara doesn’t even wince away, just stands in utter resignation, the Super symbol that is now bared to the room suddenly a mockery.

Lena doesn’t hit her, doesn’t yell or cry, she just reaches up and pulls the glasses from Kara’s face, clenching them in her fist. “There,” she says, staccato and flat, “Isn’t that better.”

Kara opens her mouth to speak, holding out a pleading hand to Lena, but she ignores it, turning away.

“I get it,” she says, facing the kitchen, “You couldn’t tell me, it wasn’t safe.”

“Yes,” Kara says, voice high, unrecognizable, “Yes, I was just trying to protect you.”

Lena spins back to face her, teeth bared, fist still clenched so tightly around Kara’s glasses that she absently wonders if they will break. “No, not me,” Lena growls, “You were protecting yourself from me. Because I’m a Luthor.”

“Lena,” Kara says, a plea, the word trying to soothe her away from this fire-stricken rage, “You’re ignoring the big picture.”

“Am I?” Lena says, chin tilted up, jaw clenched and defiant, “Because out of everyone in this room, I think I am the most aware of the consequences of the Luthor name.” She holds up her hand, cutting off Kara’s reply, eyes screwed shut. “You know,” she says, “I thought you were different.” Kara visibly winces now, the cut of those words from weeks ago echoing back. Lena’s anger strains at her throat, at her shoulders. “This whole time,” Lena says, voice dropping to a whisper, “You’ve been lying to me.”

Kara steps forward, hesitant and broken, eyes wet and red-rimmed. “I didn’t know,” she says, “I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t know I was going to—”

“What?” Lena bites out, “That you would want to fuck me and suddenly this lie would become inconvenient?”

“God,” Kara yelps, “God no, I—” she hesitates, shoulders squaring, something like resolve coloring her face. And then she’s standing straighter, and Lena is looking at neither Supergirl nor Kara Danvers. Instead, she is standing in front of Kara Zor-El, a Kryptonian, a hero by duty not just by choice, the last woman of a dead world. “I know the burden of a family name better than anyone,” Kara says, stepping forward, “I know what it feels like to be judged in your parents’ place.” She reaches for Lena and Lena lets her, tilting her cheek into the warm curve of Kara’s palm. “I was raised with this,” she gestures at her chest, at herself, “being my most forbidden truth.” She strokes light at Lena’s cheekbone, smoothing the tense clench of her teeth beneath her taught skin, “By the time I realized I needed to tell you, I didn’t know how.”

Lena closes her eyes, letting her anger fade to a molten calm. Lena knows that some part of herself already knew the truth, but was ignoring the signs, the answer so obvious that it was the one thing her eyes refused to see.

Kara swallows hard, one hand reaching for Lena’s wrist, massaging the tension from her hand until she releases the glasses. Neither of them react as they clatter to the floor. Kara tips Lena’s face toward her, and Lena finds herself frozen in her wide, blue gaze.

“I was so lucky,” Kara says, voice a hush, “to have you in both of my lives,” she ducks her head, regretful, “I guess I just didn’t know how to give that up.”

Lena reaches out a hand, brushing at the crest with her fingertips, snagging in the fabric and trying to displace the heavy weight pressing down on her chest. “I couldn’t stay away from either of you,” Lena says softly, “And I didn’t know why. And now….”

“And now,” Kara echoes, voice a tremor, hand moving to catch at Lena’s fingers, holding her tight against her chest until Lena can feel the hummingbird flutter of her heartbeat.

Lena shrugs, hopeless, “I still don’t know how to stay away.” She pulls away from Kara’s grasp, and Kara lets her go immediately, taking a hurried step back. “But I’m going to need some time.”

Kara nods frantically, and on any other day it would be an amusing sight: This woman, half-transformed, part-Super, part-girl, face lighting up in relief and gratitude. “Of course, of course.”

Lena lifts her eyes to meet Kara’s, dark brow knitting tight, arms crossed reflexively across her chest. “Was everything else,” Lena starts, choking half-way through, unable to bear the consequences of this question, “Was everything else real?”

“Oh, Lena,” Kara sighs, lips parted, one hand pressed to her chest, “Sometimes it felt like the only real part of my life.”

Lena gasps wetly, taking a step forward and wrapping her arms around Kara’s neck. Kara tilts her head down, their foreheads resting against each other, each frozen in perfect profile, framed by the quickly advancing dark.

They both rock in, pulling away before their lips touch, suspended in this moment, in the perfect anticipation of their almost-kiss.

Kara’s phone rings, and Lena drops her forehead to Kara’s chest, laughing helplessly. She can feel Kara’s sigh more than hear it, and she twists her hands in the fabric of Kara’s undone shirt as Kara answers the phone.

“What?” Kara snaps. And then “of course.” Another pause “Uh-huh.” Lena pulls back in time to see Kara tips her head to the open window, exasperation and exhaustion playing heavy across her face, her silhouette just a silver outline.

Lena steps back, already missing Kara’s warmth, waiting for Kara to turn and look at her. She does, and Lena knows immediately.

“Duty calls?” Lena says quietly, the child-like exhilaration she felt while approaching the apartment replaced with tepid resignation.

Kara answers in an exhale, “Fuck.”

Lena does smile now, and Kara smiles back, looking a little star-struck at Lena’s affections.

“You better watch that mouth of yours,” Lena says, stepping forward to tap under Kara’s chin, “this is starting to become a habit.”

“What can I say?” Kara says, that grin back, all charm and bluster, “You’re a terrible influence.”

She steps into her bedroom quickly, stepping out mere seconds later in full Supergirl garb, boots clinging to her thighs under the high hemline of her skirt, cape dripping red down her back. The sight of it, of her, strikes Lena hard, manifesting in an empty pang in her chest and—worse—a dull throb low in her stomach.

“Will I see you soon?” Supergirl—Kara—asks, head tilting and lips pouted hopefully.

Lena wants to say yes, but she schools her expression coolly, tilting her head to mirror Kara’s own. “I need a little bit of time and then…”

“And then,” Kara says with a grin, seeming pleased and a little bit flustered by the implication. She hesitates at the window, once foot propped on the sill, staring at Lena for a beat too long, looking utterly captivated by what she sees.

Lena raises one eye-brow, managing a smirk. “Don’t you have a world to save?”

Kara’s answer is one last jagged smile before she dives into the night.

**

Lena hasn’t spoken to Kara in four days.

She said she wanted space and Kara, ever respectful, is giving it to her. Lena wishes she could stick to her word as well as Kara seems to be, but she can’t help checking her phone every five minutes. She has typed so many half-formed texts and then deleted them that Lena thinks even her phone must be exhausted.

Lena closes her eyes and sees her—as Supergirl, as Kara—unfurling messily under her touch, blushing that pretty flustered pink, biting bruises into Lena’s skin. Lena pinches at the bridge of her nose and tries to chase the fantasies away.

It would be so easy, Lena thinks, to just run back her. But something stops her: an uncertainty, a weighty doubt that sits heavy on her chest, a fear that their inherent selves can’t possibly mesh, not with their history, not with the combined weight of their respective prejudices.

Lena picks up her phone.

**Lena (2:34)** how will this work? With me being a Luthor and you being Supergirl?

**Kara (2:45)** Lena!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A barrage of emojis follow this text, and Lena picks out a row of multicolored hearts, a plate of spaghetti, and three heart-eyes before she starts to get dizzy.

**Lena (2:46)** is that your answer?

**Kara (2:47)** no I just missed you : )

**Lena (2:50)** oh

**Lena (2:50)** well that’s okay then.

**Lena (2:53)** now about that question…

**Kara (3:02)** we aren’t our family Lena. They don’t define us. You’re so much more than them. WE are so much more than our family’s feud.

**Kara (3:03)** ALSO its kind of romantic don’t you think? There’s some Shakespearian poetry to all this

**Lena (3:04)** have I mentioned lately that you are ridiculous?

**Kara (3:04)** have I mentioned lately that I was an english minor? Because I was an english minor.

**Lena (3:05)** oh my god

**Kara (3:07)** my only love sprung from my only hate

**Lena (3:07)** oh my GOD

**Kara (3:08)** too early seen unknown, and known too late/prodigious birth of love it is to me/that I must love a loathed enemy.

**Lena (3:09)** OH MY GOOOD

**Lena (3:11)** I was going to invite you over for dinner but after all this…

**Kara (3:11)** WAIT NO ill be good no more romeo and juliet i promise

**Lena (3:12)** 7?

**Kara (3:12)** 7 is perfect

**Kara (4:04)** I defy you, stars

**

Lena hears a knock at her window at 6:52. She turns from the stove, an apron fixed around her waist, hair scraped into a precarious ponytail. She has a cookbook open on the black soapstone counter, hastily purchased cooking supplies heaped in a messy pile.

Kara is hovering outside, twenty stories up, cape billowing behind her. The clean, imposing design of her suit is a stark contrast to Kara’s sheepish grin. Kara has her fist lightly raised against the bay window, and she ducks her head when she catches Lena’s eyes, gesturing at Lena to unlatch the thick paned glass. Lena strides over, trying to hide a smile behind a facade of exasperation. She pushes open the window and Kara tumbles through, landing heavily on the window seat. She stands somewhat shyly as Lena fastens the window, hands knotted in front of herself, looking at Lena carefully from under lowered lashes. A part of Lena likes seeing Supergirl look so bashful, it’s a vulnerability that this facet of Kara’s personality has always seemed to shirk. But seeing it now, in cheeks rouged from the night air and the quiet way she stands, tugs hard in her chest.

Lena is utterly and undeniably taken, and she would be annoyed with herself if the whole thing wasn’t so entirely inevitable.

“Is there a reason,” Lena starts, propping her hands on her hips, “that you came in through the window instead of the door?” She reaches out to tug at one of Kara’s loose curls, “also, you know I have a balcony?

Kara shrugs, “I was in a hurry.”

Lena laughs, exasperated, “Why?”

Kara looks up now, fixing Lena with a look that makes her stomach drop. “I missed you.”

“Oh,” Lena says, taken aback by such honest affection. She flattens her hand hard over her heart, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, “I missed you, too.”

They stand in silence, that heavy weight of attraction and affection catching in Lena’s chest, almost too much to bear. But it’s different now, colored with the acidity of betrayal, an uncertainty that stops the hand Lena wants to raise to Kara’s flushed cheek. The truth is Lena doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know the balance anymore. Her attraction to Supergirl and Kara lived as this separate, tangent thing and now—

Kara must sense the weight, must somehow catch the lingering notes of hesitance that hum between them, and she swallows hard, taking a small, polite step back.

“So,” Kara says, nodding her head as she looks around the room, “this is your apartment.”

Lena flattens her expression, one hand angled on her hip, “I was planning on giving you a tour, but it seems you would prefer to fall right into things.”

Kara grins, any bashfulness gone, reaching out a hand to pinch lightly at Lena’s arm. “Give me the tour anyway.” Lena gives her a hard look, pinching her lips, and Kara amends: “Please.”

Lena is so utterly endeared that she has to turn away, hoping Kara misses the smile that colors her mouth, pulling hard at her cheeks. Of course Kara, ever bright-eyed and observant, doesn’t miss a thing. She tugs at Lena’s arm, fingers settling at Lena’s elbow, turning her around to face her. Lena can’t help but notice the hard lines of Kara’s bicep, the cut of her collarbones above the high collar of her suit, she fumbles a step closer to Kara despite herself, the movement as inescapable as fate, the draw of Kara part of some larger design.

Kara ducks in closer and Lena immediately feels the warmth of her, heady and coercive. Lena’s breathe stutters despite herself and she swears that she can smell starlight. Kara raises her hand, brushing her thumb over the corner of Lena’s mouth. Lena tilts her head into the touch, lips parting, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. Kara doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t move closer either, eyes trained on Lena’s mouth, thumb caught at the corner of her lips, just where they would turn up into a smile.

“What are you doing?” Lena breathes, mouth barely moving, the words more an exhale than anything.

“I’m finding your hidden kiss,” Kara says softly, her other hand moving to splay wide across Lena’s jaw, tilting her face toward her.

“What?” Lena says, brow crinkling, eyes opening, too aware of the electric ache of Kara’s touch to try to decipher her words.

“Did you ever read Peter Pan?” Kara asks, voice a hush, her thumb and forefinger moving to hold Lena’s chin, urging it up. Lena, pliable and complacent in her hands, follows the voiceless directions helplessly.

Lena shakes her head. “Is this another English minor thing?” she asks, almost a joke, but the moment is too weighted for it to land.

Kara hums softly, “Not so much.” She releases a breath and Lena feels the heat of it on her mouth, her cheeks. “When I was young I was fascinated with your people’s literature.” She breaks Lena’s gaze for heartbeat, eyes finding the sky outside the window, “a flying boy who could never grow up,” she tilts her gaze back down, amused, “I’m sure you can see the appeal.”

Lena’s brow is still furrowed, unsure if Kara is getting to a point. But with Kara’s hands on her like this, the low lilt to her voice, Lena wonders if she wants her to. “Mrs. Darling had a hidden kiss,” Kara says, “Right here.” She drags her thumb across the corner of Lena’s mouth again, sparking an ache low in her belly.

“And?” Lena breathes. Her pulse is skyrocketing and the way Kara is biting at her lip tells her that she can hear it, that she knows just what she’s doing.

“And you have one, too,” Kara says. Now she is leaning in, head tilting down, both hands cupping at Lena’s jaw. Just before her eyes drift closed, Lena hears her sigh out, “I wonder…”

Every particle in Lena’s body aches for her to let this happen, to surrender, easily and happily, to the inevitability of this kiss, but—

She pulls away, just before their lips can touch, angling her head sideways so Kara’s kiss only brushes at her cheek. Kara startles back, hands immediately shooting in the air like she’s in a hold-up, eyes drawn wide and mouth open.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says, “I just thought,” she trails off, looking chastised and embarrassed.

Lena shakes her head quickly, arms crossing over her stomach, closing her eyes and reminding herself to breathe, slow and steady, trying to free her body from Kara’s pure inadvertent hypnosis, the compelling spell of her that entraps Lena as easy as a fly in a web. She is a willing victim after all.

“We can’t,” Lena says, opening her eyes to meet Kara’s worried gaze, brow pulling low, “I mean, I can’t.” She tightens her jaw, “I need time. I think we should—”

Kara jumps in immediately, over-apologetic, wringing her hands compulsively, “Wait, right yes, we should wait.” She splays her fingers in front of herself, over expressive in her anxiety, “You’re so right, I’m so sorry.”

“God, no,” Lena says, coaxing authority back into her voice, “Don’t apologize. You are absolutely…”

Kara tilts her head, “Absolutely…?”

Lena swats at her, “Don’t fish.”

Kara laughs and Lena joins, the tension breaks, and it’s like all the oxygen returns to the room. Kara smiles, ducking her chin low, “How about that tour?”

Lena smiles in return, loving the crinkle of Kara’s smile at the corner of her eyes. She turns, gesturing at Kara to follow, “So this is the kitchen, obviously.” She takes a few more steps, gesturing at the living room, all low leather furniture and metallic coffee tables, an empty vase centered on the mantelpiece above a sleek flat-screen. “And this is the living room.”

Lena evaluates the room as if a stranger, suddenly embarrassed by the lack of personal touches, her bookshelf more engineering textbooks than novels, the only warmth a cinnamon brown blanket thrown across the back of the couch. She turns back to Kara, commentary on her lips, when she realizes she hasn’t followed her, that she is still several paces back in the kitchen, staring at her.

Lena appraises her: Kara’s slack jaw, her head on a tilt, eyes dazed. Lena frowns, turning fully to face her and crossing her arms, “What are you doing?”

Kara’s head snaps up, and she meets Lena’s gaze guiltily, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. “What?” she says, hurried, the syllable all a rush, “Who’s doing something?”

Lena raises an eyebrow, “You, apparently.”

Kara swallows, a pink flush clinging to her cheeks, “I was just,” she sighs, gesturing helplessly, “You’re wearing jeans.”

Lena shakes her head, “And?”

The tips of Kara’s ears flush a deep, devastating red and she ducks her chin to her chest, words mumbled to her boots, “I’ve just never seen you in jeans.”

Lena takes in the blush, the uncomfortable squirm of Kara under her gaze, and realizes the issue all at once. She smirks, so self-satisfied she almost doesn’t know what to do with herself. She knows she said they can’t kiss, but Lena supposes she didn’t really take flirting off the table.

“And do you like them?”

Kara’s response is to direct her eye-line politely over Lena’s head, hands knotting in front of her, “They look very fit.” Her eyes jerk down to Lena’s, alarmed, “I mean—they fit very well, I mean, they look nice and fit very well,” her words trail off and her expression blanks out to one of utter embarrassment.

She looks down and then back up, her expression somewhat composed, meeting Lena’s smirk with a face of defeated resignation. “Can we just do the tour now, please.”

Lena turns back around as she answers. “I was trying to, but someone couldn’t stop staring at my ass.” For Kara’s sake, she chooses to pretend that she doesn’t hear the choked noise that comes from behind her. “So this is the living room,” Lena says again, then, motioning to the hallway off the far-side of the living room, “And that’s the guest room and bathroom.”

She reaches behind her, hand outstretched, and Kara catches at her fingertips, sliding their palms together until she has caught up enough for their fingers to intertwine. Neither of them mention it as they keep walking, Kara staggered half a step behind. Lena tugs her down the other hallway off of the living room, and Kara peers curiously into the first room on the right.

Lena squeezes her hand, “That’s my at-home office.”

Kara pulls a face, “As if you need one, you’re already at work so much.”

Lena throws her a look of amused affection, “Says the woman with a day and night job.”

Kara shrugs, “It’s my duty.” She says it so casually, with that Supergirl confidence and heroic obligation, and Lena catches herself remembering, like she has all night, that they’re the same, they’re the same, they’re the same.

She feels that same sense of vertigo, and the world swoops slightly, her reality unraveling in that distant, awful way. Kara must sense it, ever vigilant, and catches at Lena’s waist, the warm pulse of her palm lighting Lena’s skin through both the apron and the denim of her jeans. Lena politely steps away, righting herself.

“I’m fine,” she says to Kara’s unasked question, eager to move along. She leads Kara to the last room, pushing open the door and leaning against the doorjamb as Kara takes it in.

“Your bedroom,” Kara says, somewhat unnecessarily, and Lena can see her eyes skipping around the room, the bookshelves, the extra workbench spread with picked apart electronics, the laundry basket messy with unfolded clothes, before settling on the main event: the bed, stacked high with excess blankets and an array of superfluous pillows.

There is something overly intimate about the two of them standing in the doorway, looking at the bed. Lena gets a flash of what could be if she just gave in: Kara pressed down into the blankets, the arch of her neck, her back, her legs opening under Lena’s hands, her—

Kara coughs, and Lena startles out of her fantasies, mortified despite not having done anything yet. Kara looks similarly flustered, hands toying with her cape, head leaning against the doorframe.

“So,” Kara says, the word startlingly loud in the silence of the suddenly confining apartment, “Are we gonna address the elephant in the room?”

Lena turns toward her, hands clenched at her side, dread rising at the conversation she is sure will follow. She squares her jaw, presses her lips into a thin line, and waits.

Kara hesitates, fixing her with a furrowed, serious look, before she speaks. “You have an apron on, which means you’re thinking about cooking.” A pause. “I mean, I know I have freeze breathe but maybe we should grab a fire extinguisher just to be safe.”

It takes a second for the words to land, but when they do Lena startles back with a laugh, relief unwinding the pitted anxiety in her stomach. She takes a step closer to Kara to punch at her arm, pleased when Kara winces theatrically.

“You are so annoying,” Lena says affectionately, her hand automatically coming up to soothe over the place she hit, though logically she knows Kara probably didn’t even feel it.

Kara seems pleased by the attention, leaning into Lena’s hand, lips pursing into a pout. Lena strokes light at the fabric of her suit, half of her brain automatically considering the fibers, dissecting their origin and strength, the other half completely and entirely electrified by the steady warmth of Kara’s skin, only separated from her hand by the thin, fitted spandex.

“Are you going to wear this all dinner?” Lena asks absently, “It feels a little…”

Kara hums in agreement, “Yeah, maybe that would be a little weird.” She reaches up a hand to rub sheepishly at the back of her neck, “I wasn’t really thinking, I just kinda flew over here.”

Lena pulls her hand away, ignoring the return of Kara’s pout, and steps deeper into the bedroom, dropping to her knees in front of a sleek, chrome bureau. She pulls out a drawer, rifling through it before pulling back satisfied. She tosses the object at Kara who catches it easily, unfurling it in her hands.

Kara grins when she sees what it is, running her fingers along the “HARVARD” lettering stitched across the breast. “You remembered.”

Lena shrugs, hating the flush that heats her chest, “I liked you in my clothes.”

Kara looks at her, startled and a little awed, smile pulling up in the apple of her cheek. She doesn’t say anything, just unclips her cape, shaking out the wrinkles and folding it in a neat rectangle. She drapes it across the corner of Lena’s bed, the crimson fabric a startling contrast to the dreamy white.

Kara pulls the sweatshirt over her head eagerly, burying her hands deep in the pocket happily before fixing Lena with an expectant smile. “So how do I look?”

Lena raises a hand to cover her mouth, eyes crinkling as she holds back a giggle. “Great.”

Kara looks at Lena’s face and then down at herself, her skirt and boots paired with the baggy sweatshirts, a near ridiculous combination of crime fighting apparel and comfy, over-large cotton. Kara laughs, “This should be my new outfit, honestly.”

Lena can’t stop her giggle this time and she steps closer, fingering the high hem of Kara’s skirt absently. “I think I’d like my sweatshirt to remain bullet-hole free, thanks.”

Kara grins, raising one arm and flexing, “that’s gonna be hard when I’ve already got these guns.”

Lena’s mouth hinges open, and she stares for a long beat before turning on her heel and walking out of the room. “You are uninvited,” Lena throws over her shoulder, “Just a heads up.”

Kara laughs, taking one last look around the room, eyes lingering on the bed, before following, a protest ready on her lips.

**

Lena braces herself against the counter, hands splayed flat on the cool, dark stone, mouth pulled to the side as she muddles her way through the page in her cookbook. She heaves a sigh, arching her neck to glance at Kara, “So are you going to bail me out anytime soon?”

Kara looks up from where she is settled cross-legged on the floor behind her, “Hmm?”

She found Lena’s cat about ten minutes ago, sitting on the ground until he approached her, tail curled into a question mark, sniffing curiously at her outstretched hands. Though notorious for his apathy, he is now settled happily on Kara’s lap, a purr rumbling against her fingers as she scratches under his chin.

Lena turns fully to face her, leaning back against the counter, both hands pinned behind her hips in case she tries to do something stupid, like kissing Kara senseless or replacing the damn cat on her lap.

“He never sits on my lap,” she says, somewhat bitterly, shooting a glare at the cat who just blinks up at her with wide, indifferent eyes.

Kara smiles, soft and sunlight-sweet, running a hand down the arch of his back, scratching just behind his ear. “Maybe he can sense I’m not human either.”

Lena shakes her head, “Or maybe he’s just as taken with you as—” she cuts herself off, internally wincing as Kara raises her eyes from the cat, lips still curled in that careful smile.

“As?”

Lena flaps her hand dismissively and Kara look back down at the cat on her lap. “Well at least he doesn’t keep anything from me.” She looks up again, “What did you say his name was?”

Lena turns back to the counter, feeling an empty throb in her chest, “I didn’t.” Lena takes a great interest in the tile backsplash, running a finger down the glossy sheen of tile, the rough quality of the grout. “Lex named him.”

Kara says nothing for a heavy moment, and Lena immediately regrets opening her mouth. Then she hears the cat’s disgruntled mewl as Kara presumably shucks him off her lap, and the sound of Kara standing, the rustle of fabric as she moves toward her.

“What did he name him?” Her voice is soft, careful, like she’s worried Lena will startle.

Lena clears her throat, “Erebus.” Kara shifts closer, hovering behind Lena, not quite touching. Lena can feel the weight of her at her back, the ghost of a hand at her hip. Kara hums quietly, an encouragement for her to keep talking. “Lex was obsessed with Greek mythology, he would read me their stories when we were young.” She swipes hard at her cheek, keenly embarrassed, a hot rush of self-consciousness staining her face a blotchy red. She can’t bring herself to look back at Kara, so she remains facing the kitchen wall instead.

Lena so clearly remembers those nights with Lex at her bedside. She was young enough that she hadn’t yet noticed the signs, didn’t know well enough to be scared, still trapped in the peaceful, bubble of ignorance. He would sit with D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths on his lap, reading Lena stories of triumph and bloodshed and war. The trials of God and Man.

Lena leans back, ever slightly, and Kara responds in kind, moving forward until Lena is pressed against her chest. Her arms move to wrap at Lena’s waist, head dropping to her shoulder, lips at her neck.

Lena turns into Kara, folding into the sweet, sharp scent of her, feeling her strength and steel muscled beneath an ivory exterior. Lena knows she should think her a God, a hero ripped from storybook pages, with the power to create or to kill, a deity divine, wrought from the cosmos.

Lena knows she should fear her. After all, she was raised to.

But then Kara nuzzles at her cheek, breathe warm on her lips, hands curling soft around her waist. "Alex named our first family cat Mr. Sprinkles, so.”

Lena chokes out a laugh, knocking Kara’s cheek with her forehead, entirely disbelieving that the woman before her has the power to destroy cities, and achingly and despairingly pleased that she is the person caught in Kara’s inadvertent enchantment.

Lena manages to speak around the lump that sits heavy in her throat, “You are—”

“I know,” Kara murmurs against her cheek, “I’m ridiculous.

Lena raises her chin, her lips just brushing the shell of Kara’s ear. “I was going to say lovely, but yes that too.”

When she pulls away she catches the pink flush high on Kara’s cheekbones, the fumble of her hands at her waist, and she turns back to the cookbook feeling more whole than she has in ages.

The cat wandered away during their conversation, pointedly disinterested in their interactions not involving him, and Kara seems briefly at a loss without him. She hovers for a moment, caught between Lena and the kitchen island, before she steps closer, hitching herself onto the counter next to Lena’s book.

“So, what are you making?” She runs a hand down the neat pages of the cookbook, “I’m honestly surprised you have one of these.”

“I just bought it,” Lena says, exasperated, and Kara laughs that throaty, low chuckle, shaking her head.

“Now that makes more sense.”

Lena fixes her with a glare. “I was going to make pasta, but—” she casts a despairing glance around the kitchen, “I don’t have half the ingredients and it is starting to seem a little hopeless.”

Kara knocks her feet against the cupboards, drumming lightly with her socked feet. She shucked off her boots at some point in the last ten minutes and Lena is wholly endeared with the way she has begun to scatter her things around Lena’s apartment.

(Her skirt and tights had been traded for some of Lena’s sweatpants fifteen minutes prior, and she had discarded them somewhere in the living room.)

(She had begun to change so nonchalantly that Lena got a glimpse of a pale, muscled thigh before she fled the room citing non-existent boiling water.)

“We could just order pizza?” Kara says, tilting her head to look at Lena.

Lena turns to look at her, “Really?” she glances down at the cursed cookbook, “You won’t be annoyed?”

Kara snorts, “With pizza? As if.”

Lena laughs, “Okay, Cher.”

Kara scrunches her face, “It’s Kara.”

“Oh my god,” Lena says, amusement thrumming high in her chest, “Have you never seen Clueless?”

Kara shakes her head, “Alex has an aversion to Paul Rudd.”

“Wow,” Lena tilts her head, considering, “She really is a lesbian.”

Kara swats at her, laughing. “There were so many signs.”

“We could—” Lena hesitates, “We could watch it if you want?”

Kara nods eagerly, “Yes, please.” Then, whipping out her phone, “I’ll order the pizza.” She pauses, “preferred toppings?”

Lena shrugs, “Whatever.” Then, pausing, “No anchovies.” She starts toward the living room before turning back, “Or green peppers.” Then again: “No onions either.”

Kara cuts in, “How’s pepperoni?”

Lena smirks, “Perfect.”

She steps into the living room quietly, listening to Kara’s bright chatter on the phone. She turns on the TV and picks up the remotes, tossing them to the couch. Part of her can’t believe she is about to spend this not-date eating pizza and watching a 90s rom-com. Lena has always been a red-wine and up-scale restaurant dater, taking girls home only as the night is tipping into morning, for more drinks and a fuck. And yet—

Kara calls her name from the kitchen, “I did it!”

Lena walks back toward her, finding Kara still reclined back on the counter, hair falling loose and wavy down her back, dressed in Lena’s clothes. She feels a throb of hunger low in her stomach, a pulse of want, and she clenches her fists tightly, nails biting her skin.

She isn’t about to lose her resolve now, even if Kara is chewing absently at her lip, eyes turning to Lena, lazy and half-lidded, mouth tilting into a crooked smile.

“Hey,” Kara says, and Lena feels the ache take an even deeper hold. Lena closes her eyes, exhaling slow.

A single fucking syllable. How is any of this fair.

Kara sits up from her repose, blinking wide and oblivious, “Are you okay?”

Lena steps closer, “I was just turning on the TV.”

Kara nods, pleased, “Pizza will be here in 15.”

Lena leans against the counter beside her, hand finding its way to Kara’s thigh. “Thank you.”

Kara glances down at her hand than back to Lena’s face. “Um, no problem.”

Lena inches her hand higher, one finger tracing the inside seam of Kara’s sweats carefully, applying light pressure through the polyester. “I think you’ll really like this movie,” Lena says conversationally, hand moving to the muscled flex of Kara’s upper thigh, “It’s a classic, definitely a boarding school favorite.”

“Mhm,” Kara says, voice pitched a little shrill. She is poised stock-still and tense, hands white knuckled on the lip of the counter, “Sounds good.”

Lena presses in closer, hand sliding until it’s settled just below the jut of Kara’s hipbone, fingers curled carefully over the slope of her thigh, “I’m glad.”

Kara’s breath hitches in her throat, “I’m—” Her words are interrupted by a sharp crack and Kara all but falls off the counter, face turning a deep, flushed red as she realizes what she’s done.  
“Oh my gosh,” she says, staring hard at the counter, “I am so sorry, I don’t even know…” Lena regards the counter carefully, eyes skipping over the black stone countertop, a neat chasm now running down the middle. Kara is looking at her now, obviously mortified, words a stutter a she continues to try to speak. “I can find someone to fix it or I’ll get it replaced or—”

Lena cuts her off with a soft laugh, reaching out to tug at Kara’s arm. “Kara, it’s so okay, soapstone is on its way out anyway.” Kara’s face is still pulled tight in an expression of regret, brow crinkled and concerned, and Lena reaches to cup her face, smoothing away the lines. “It was worth it,” she says, voice soft and low, and Kara goes rigid, hands tensing at her side.

“You’re messing with me,” Kara says, not accusatory, just resigned, and Lena nods with a smirk.

“I most definitely am,” Lena says, turning to the living room and pulling Kara with her, “Now get ready to meet your new hero.”

**

Kara is falling asleep.

Her eyes blink slow, cheek sinking heavy into the cup of her palm, elbow dangerously close to slipping off the arm of the couch altogether. Lena watches, equal parts amused and enchanted, as Kara attempts to jar herself awake, shaking her head with a perfunctory jerk before directing her gaze back at the TV.

Lena looks at her, fascinated, as Kara’s eyes start to drift shut again, lashes fluttering against her cheek, lips parted and head nodding. Lena’s gaze catches as on the clever bow of her top lip, the curve of mouth as it purses in a sleepy, petulant pout. She is curled tight against her side of the couch, knees pulled to her chest, hands buried deep in the folds of her clothes.

They are resting against opposite sides of Lena’s long leather sofa and, regardless of any earlier decrees of caution, the distance suddenly seems much too far. It seems a sin to have Kara so far away when Lena could be touching her instead. She reaches out a hand, resting it on Kara’s bare foot, squeezing gently.

Kara hums her discontent against her own palm. “Your hand is cold,” she says, half-asleep and slurred, “You’re an icicle.”

Lena rubs her thumb at Kara’s ankle, tracing the hard angle of her jutting ankle bone, drawing a finger up the taught line of Kara’s calf. Kara peeks at her with one eye, seeming slightly more alert now, foot pushing just barely back into Lena’s grasp.

“Still too cold?” Lena says, soft and almost teasing, tickling at the sole of Kara’s foot. Kara mutters something unintelligible into her palm and Lena quirks her head, “What was that?”

Kara says it again, “It’s okay.”

Lena smirks, “Oh? Is it okay now?”

Kara closes her eyes again, managing a shrug, “Still kinda cold.”

Lena raises her hand, holding it out to, “Come warm me up then.”

Kara cracks her eyes open and turns her head to look at Lena, a little disbelieving, hands still curled against her stomach. Lena smiles, shifting to lie on her back, arms open.

“C’mon,” Lena says again, “You’re like a little space heater, anyway.”

The TV is nothing but background noise now, a white-static hum that illuminates the space, lighting the starkly human want that pulls heavy in Kara’s brow, the glint of her teeth as they bite hard at her bottom lip. The world of the expansive, lavish apartment has narrowed to the two of them, Kara the sun and Lena one of her desperate planets, caught in eternal, futile orbit. Kara sits up, shifting her weight toward Lena’s end of the couch, one hand catching at Lena’s knee, the other wrapped loose around Lena’s waist.

“Is this okay?” Kara asks quietly, and Lena’s stomach flips, the words evoking the illusion of an entirely more intimate situation.

“Yes,” Lena sighs, reaching up to tug at Kara’s sweatshirt, coaxing her toward her. “Yes,” she says again, her words sounding too much like a prayer, as though Kara is the result of some divine plea.

Kara settles down between her legs, head resting at the crux of Lena’s neck, hands catching at her shoulder and curling their way under her back. They are pressed tight, Kara’s breathe hot against Lena’s throat, body humming where it presses against her. Lena closes her eyes, hands twisting at the hem of Kara’s hoodie, legs crooking to bracket her hips.

Kara is already dozing off again, but Lena feels painfully and poignantly awake. Her body, cold before, now feels fire-hot, her attraction a low-pulse of heat licking down her stomach, between her legs, manifesting in a blush that creeps up her chest, singes her neck.

If Kara is the sun, then she has consumed her.

Lena closes her eyes and thinks that she would go willingly.

**

Lena doesn’t manage to coax Kara off of the couch until after ten.

When Kara finally sits up she is grumbling, face creased from Lena’s shirt, hair a tangled mess. Lena watches her stifle a yawn, face screwed up, nose wrinkling, and she smiles, tugging at the hem of Kara’s sweatshirt.

“Let me take you home.”

Kara looks at Lena after a brief moment of hesitation, and Lena wonders if she imagines Kara’s quick look of disappointment.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Lena says, she stands with a small groan, stretching her arms over her head, “It’s the least I can do for my savior.”

Kara looks a little uncomfortable at the nickname, maybe even a little flustered, and she stands quickly, “I can fly, honestly.”

Lena turns to Kara, arranging her face into something more serious, lips pressed thin, “Kara, I want to.” She turns around, propping her hands on her hips, absentmindedly scanning the room for Kara’s boots, “I like spending time with you.”

When she turns back Kara’s eyes are blown wide, hands jammed deep in her pockets, “Yeah?”

Lena smirks, stepping close enough to smooth a touch over Kara’s cheek. “Yeah.”

Kara smiles and Lena can feel it beneath her fingers: the plush of her dimples, the crease of her laugh lines, the strong clench of her jaw under that deceptively fragile skin.

Kara smiles and Lena forgets the details—she forgets Kara’s cape, and the Luthor legacy, and her brother’s knife, buried in Kara’s only living family’s back.

She smiles and she’s just Kara Danvers again, striding false-confident and prim into Lena’s office for that first interview, with Lena pretending she can see anything but the blinding, sun-soaked girl in the corner, deflecting her eyes to Clark Kent and his preconceptions.

Kara nuzzles hard into her hand, eyes fluttering closed, absently hooking one finger in a belt-loop on Lena’s jeans. Lena turns her eyes to that smile, to Kara’s taught cupid-bow lips and the glint of her white, biting teeth.

She could kiss her. Easily. And Lena knows without question that Kara would kiss her back. But there’s that hesitation again, astringent and toxic, a poison burning low in her throat.

Things are not as they were.

Lena pulls away, ignoring the smile as it falls from Kara’s face.

There is a cape. And there is a legacy. And Superman’s blood is on Lena’s hands too, whether she likes it or not.

“I’ll help you gather your clothes,” Lena says quickly, bending to peer beneath a squat, faux-fur armchair, “I know your boots are around here somewhere…”

Kara accepts the deflections easily, kindly, and Lena wonders how much longer she has until Kara decides that she is tired of waiting.

**

Lena clicks her key into the ignition. The car starts easily despite the sluggish bite of the winter air and the warm rev of the engine and the easy catch of the clutch tugs at her with more nostalgia than a trip to the old Luthor Manor ever could. She looks at Kara in the seat beside her before she pulls away from the curb, feeling uncomfortably fond at the way Kara tilts sidewise in the leather upholstery, forehead pressed to the cool glass of the window.

They drive in silence, the dash lights throwing indecipherable reflections onto the driver-side window, street lamps warming the car with dull, yellow light. Kara moves away from the window only after they turn onto Broad, shifting to look at Lena, her attention unabashed and open. She reaches out to brush at Lena’s knuckles where her hand is locked tight around the gear-shift.

Lena softens at this, wilting, letting Kara pry her fingers from the console, folding her hand into Kara’s touch easily. Kara pets soft strokes over the back of her hand and explores Lena’s calluses with the pads of curious fingers.

“What are these from?” she murmurs, seeming hesitant to interrupt the hush that surrounds them, voice tilted quiet.

Lena answers in the same low whisper, loathe to disturb the calm. “From too much tinkering, I suppose.” She pauses, considering, “My dad used to say I never looked more at home than I did in the garage with him.” Kara hums thoughtfully, an encouragement, and Lena keeps talking. “We would restore cars together,” Lena hesitates, the cabin suddenly stifling, “when I was young, at least, before it was no longer fitting.”

“Your dad?” Kara says, curious, her thumb running the ridges of Lena’s knuckles, enticing a shiver.

Lena shrugs, swallowing hard and hoping Kara doesn’t notice. “He was kind,” she clicks on the turn signal, letting the methodical beats fill her pause, “Until he wasn’t.”

Kara says nothing, but her right hand joins the left, cradling Lena’s palm between her own, her touch a comfort, a reminder of something solid, something real. She watches Lena take a turn, throttling the gas a little too fast, the jerk of the car just another bruise on the night’s raw quiet.

When Kara speaks again, it isn’t what Lena expects, her voice is lilting, dreamy, and her eyes are trained on a moon that Lena can only just make out in her peripheral. “You would have loved Krypton.”

Lena almost startles, but she remembers herself at the last second, squeezing Kara’s hand instead.

Kara speaks in a way that implies she is giving voice to words she hasn’t let herself think in a while, as though recounting a story that she let grow stale on her tongue, its fable muddled by taboo. “It was a temple for technology and engineering. It fostered growth, advancement…” She trails off and Lena can feel Kara stealing a glance at her, hesitant, suddenly shy. “My parents would have loved you.”

It’s all too much, all too overwhelming, and yet Lena is starving for it. She feels a craving with an intensity she didn’t even know she had, a hunger brand new, yet impossible to satiate. “You think so?” Lena’s voice sounds small, even to herself, and she would feel embarrassed if Kara’s wistful gaze wasn’t fixed back on that indiscernible moon.

“You and my people share a similar passion,” Kara says, there is a weight to her words now, something that undercuts the dreamy lilt, “Your thirst for discovery, for progress, it’s unquenchable.”

Lena pulls her hand from Kara’s to make a sharp turn, and the gesture leaves her cold. “Is that a bad thing?”

Kara is looking at her again, eyes trained with intention, an impenetrable focus that gives her away as non-human when nothing else does. “You remind me of home.”

They drive the rest of the way in silence, but Kara catches at Lena’s hand again and she lets her, supplicating her wrist to the soft scratch of Kara’s nails, the slow drag of Kara’s fingers over her palm, up her forearm. Kara’s eyes shine in the red glare of the fuel gauge, and Lena remembers the flare of Supergirl’s eyes as she loomed over the would-be assassin, all coiled power and fury.

The remembrance jolts in her gut, but it’s not quite as strong as it was earlier in the evening, and she leaves her arm in Kara’s care, biting back a whine as Kara flutters her fingers over the crease of Lena’s wrist.

She stops the car in front of Kara’s building, shifting into park, the engine purring idle, both hesitant to leave the soothing hum of their newfound cocoon.

“You’ll call me?” Kara says finally, fingers catching around Lena’s wrist now, trailing a touch over the paper thin skin concealing Lena’s pulse.

“I’ll call you,” Lena says. As if she could stay away.

She turns until she faces Kara, separated by the awkward jut of the gear-shift, hand moving to twirl a curl of Kara’s hair around her finger.

Kara leans in closer and Lena is transfixed, she couldn’t stop her if she wanted to, just closes her eyes, tilting her chin up, baring her skin to Kara’s mercy. She is drunk on this night, on this moment, and her doubts and confusions pale in the light of the distant, silver moon.

Kara’s kiss catches Lena on her cheek, and she startles at the feel, jolting forward, the motion slipping Kara’s lips until they press at the corner of Lena’s mouth, sparking something low and primal through her chest, her stomach.

Kara immediately jars back, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry,” she says, voice taught, a hand raised to her mouth, “I was just kissing you on your cheek because I know you didn’t want—”

Lena stops her with a smile, her arm in Kara’s lap moving to settle comfortingly on her thigh, “I know, that was my fault.” There is another silence, long and fraught, and Kara is starting to reach for the door when Lena blurts out, “I really did miss you.”

Kara’s face softens into a smile, lips pinching tight, pleased. “I really missed you, too.” She pops open the door now, stepping out onto the curb, ducking to give Lena one last smile before she turns, walking toward her apartment building door.

Lena watches her go, one hand raising unconsciously and tracing where Kara’s lips had landed, just at the corner of her mouth.

* * *

 

_Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else, Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know its been a small eternity, and this chapter was getting out of control length-wise, so i decided to split the final chapter into two parts. thanks for being patient, i love you guys. come find me at nevervalentines.tumblr.com

The next two weeks pass in limbo.

**

Kara catches up with Lena for coffee in between deadlines, always arriving in a flustered blur, shirt collars crooked around the arch of her neck, buttons skewed in her hurry. Lena fixes them with careful hands, fingers brushing the concealed blue spandex underneath. It’s an idea she is getting used to, and she laughs when Kara ducks her head in thanks, finding those high points of red in the apple of Kara’s cheeks.

Kara scribbles notes on napkins while they sit, already outlining her next article, her mind churning breathlessly fast. Lena leans close, watching Kara craft her words with steely-precision, tongue caught between her teeth. Lena once makes the mistake of fitting her hand over Kara’s knee as she tilts closer, breath falling warm on Kara’s cheek, and Kara tenses, accidentally snapping her pen in half with one hand, ink coloring her palm black.

Lena lets Kara glare, wiping at the spots of ink that stain Kara’s cheeks, her nose, the dimple of chin. Her fingers linger on the curve of Kara’s bottom lip and she pretends that Kara doesn’t see her shiver.

**

Lena spends a handful of days holed up in her office, Jess sitting across from her, tablets and intricately color-coded excel documents spread across the desk, the white lacquer completely hidden by the expanse of their planning.

Lena volunteered L Corp to host National City’s Technology Expo, another key facet in her 37 point rebranding plan. The scheduling and preparation is immersive, and she finds herself lost in the organizational intricacies—the bureaucratic push and pull, the thrill of coaxing some larger cause into being, the power of creation.

She understands it keenly—that lust for power that consumed Lex—and sometimes she wonders if her appetite is too great, if she will succumb to his starved ways. But then she thinks of her, of Kara, of her Supergirl, warm and just and mighty, thinks of the people they both pledge to protect, and it’s almost easy to choke the temptation down.

Jess looks exhausted, she has a pencil stuck behind both ears and one in her hand. Lena, equally tired and caffeine-deprived, is too endeared to mention it to her. Lena reaches out, tapping at the back of Jess’s hand carefully.

“You can go home, Jess,” she says quietly, smiling comfortingly as her secretary snaps her head up to look at her, “You deserve it.”

Jess makes to stand before pausing, “Are you sure, Ms. Luthor?”

Lena ducks her head, “Of course, you did good work today.”

Jess grins, shy, “The expo is going to be amazing, Ms. Luthor.”

“I hope so,” Lena says, suddenly even more exhausted by the mere thought of the thing, “God knows we need this win.”

Jess pauses once more in the doorway, backlit by the hall’s dim light, a hint of concern worrying her brow, “You’ll go home soon, too?”

Lena leans back in her chair with a sigh. “Soon.”

She considers calling Kara, but thinks better of it. Being with Kara makes her feel messy and loose and impossibly exhilarated, a contradiction to everything that Lena was bred to be. Kara herself is a lesson in incongruous identity, a duality of soul, of existence: a life lived in halves, with Lena forbidden in every direction.

What they are, what they could be, exists in defiance of every facet of their lives: a Luthor and a Super, inherent good and presumed evil, a poet and a tactician, a romance forbidden by nearly every law of man and nature. Lena drops her head to her hands, pressing hard at her temples with her fingertips. She feels like a complete and utter cliché, wanting the one thing that she shouldn’t get to have.

She clicks on her phone anyway, startling when an alert pops up on her home screen: _Breaking: Supergirl shuts down robbery on Laurel Street, Two Suspects in custody._

A confusing mix of apprehension and pride tugs hard in Lena’s stomach, and she locks her phone, dimming the screen to black. She looks down at the papers on her desk, the meticulous arrangements and financial projections, the blueprints for her own exhibition, and finds it difficult to concentrate on anything but Supergirl, caught somewhere in the murky city dark, radiant and star-spun.

A legend in the making.

Lena sits at her desk and thinks of the stories that will be written about Supergirl, ballads of heroism and peace, while Lena’s family is made story-book villains by the pens of the victors.

Lena wonders where she will fall on those pages. She wonders if she belongs there at all.

**

Lena doesn’t make it back home until well after midnight. The apartment feels emptier after dark, but Erebus, shadow slick and aloof, slinks out from under the couch to wind around her ankles, purring pleased when she scratches behind his ears.

She kicks off her heels at the threshold of the living room, running a hand through her hair, teasing out any knots before scraping it into a loose ponytail, eager to escape the irritation of a pristine reputation, physical or otherwise. She walks around the borders of her living room, dragging her fingers along the edges of the walls, stopping at the sleek jut of a monochrome bookshelf, Erebus following at a distance. It’s mostly textbooks, old tombs from college, pages heavy with ink and study, but one slim paperback stops her. She wiggles it free from the shelf, flipping it in her hands to read the title.

It’s a collection of famous plays, a requirement for some requisite Lit class, a box to check off before she began to climb the ranks of Harvard’s engineering program. Lena smooths a hand over the cover before opening the novel, creasing the spine with careful fingers. She flips through the pages, past _Medea_ , _Antigone_ , _The Crucible_ , before she lands on something slightly more familiar: _Romeo and Juliet_.

She dog ears the page before tossing the book to the couch, padding to the kitchen in bare feet to reheat take-out for an excessively late dinner. Erebus watches, ever-indifferent, from his spot on the arm of the sofa. Lena curls up with her dinner and the book, feet tucked under her legs, rifling through the pages with a curious hunger, thinking of Kara’s texts from so many days before.

She’ll read for a little longer, she tells herself, then she’ll turn the TV to some mindless Home Improvement show, retreat back to the norm. Lena turns to the next page, tracing the easy cadence of the words with one absent fingertip.

Just a little while longer.

**

Friday night finds Lena propped at the sleek counter of a local bar.

It’s classy enough that she won’t be troubled, but not so lavish that Lena is forced to rub elbows with all of National City’s Most Reputable, the high-up business partners and politicians she tries to keep confined to the walls of her office. The dim lighting is enough to ensure some semblance of anonymity, and Lena takes a long pull from her beer, tilting her face into her drink while she observes the people around her. A crowd of businessmen loosen their ties at the high seats of the bar, a few misplaced college kids lean by the door, and women shift restlessly at the room’s scattered tables, lips glossy and hair styled. Lena catches one woman’s eye, smiles, accepting the pointed look politely before turning back to her drink.

Any other time she would consider the flirtation, would back the woman into the bar bathroom or the backseat of a cab, but Lena’s heart beats are syncopated in time to the memory of Kara’s name, her voice, her smile, and she’s helpless with the sound of it.

The bartender leans at the counter, elbow propped against the high ledge of the bar, head twisted to look at the muted TV mounted above the mirrored back wall of the room. Lena’s reflection is fractured by shelves of high-priced alcohol and rows of bottled beers, the glass sweating rivulets of condensation, water glinting in the low light.  
The bartender screws up his face at something he sees on the television screen, exhaling a small noise of concern under his breathe. He catches Lena looking at him and smiles politely, gesturing loosely at the screen.

“She can really take a hit,” he says. He angles his face back up to the TV, narrowing his eyes in a wince, “But it’s still hard to watch.”

Lena creases her brow in confusion, tilting her face to the images in question, an absent search for context, expecting nothing more than two boxers, jabbing strikes in the clean confines of a ring.

But it’s not boxers, and there’s nothing clean about the carnage being broadcasted live to the small downtown bar.

It’s Supergirl, currently being thrown headlong through a concrete pillar, the support crumbling at the force of her. Lena sits up straight, a heady jolt of fear ripping through her chest, the room silenced to a deafening ringing in her ears, heart thudding hard beneath her collarbone, each beat magnified in the numb hollow behind her eyes.

The camera captures Supergirl lying crumpled in a divot of asphalt, the pavement caved to meet her, her shoulders heaving heavy as she struggles to stand. Lena braces her palms against the bar, startling out of her seat, jaw clenched tight, breath stalled as her universe narrows to the grainy replication of Kara’s pain pinned to the confines of the TV’s rectangular frame.

The cape that drips onto the grit of fractured asphalt is all Supergirl, and so is the hard flex of muscle that ripples through her bowed back, the red boots scrabbling against the ground. But the expression twisting her face, a grimace tinted with unnerving determination, the flash of steely eyes, the set of a soft, curved mouth, that’s all Kara, Kara, Kara.

Supergirl—Kara—the unearthly figure framed by the dust and smoke and rubble and disaster—pushes herself to her feet, and Lena tenses, heartbeat caught high in her throat. Supergirl is poised, shoulders back and feet planted, on the screen, too imperial to be entirely captured by the pixels and wavelengths of this limiting modern technology.

She pushes off the desecrated pavement with a flex of lean calf, blurring to super-sonic as she thunders toward her opponent. The camera loses her to the messy speed of it all, and by the time it catches up, the fight scene is nothing more than rubble, its challengers spiraling away into inky night, arms locked in an endless grapple.

The camera focuses back on a harried camerawoman, white-knuckling her microphone, hair mussed and cheek streaked with soot.

“That was just Supergirl, fighting someone of,” she pauses, head tilted, listening to the voice presumably speaking quickly into her earpiece, “possibly alien origin.” The woman, on instinct, cranes her head toward the night sky, and Lena longs to be there doing the same, searching the midnight for her hero, lost in the dark. “More details to come.” A weighty pause, a sharp exhalation. “Back to you Elaine.”

Lena turns away from the screen, collapsing back into her seat, struggling to deal with the surge of worry and doubt and awe that battle high in her chest. She brushes off the bartender’s concern, managing a small smile, waving her hand slightly.

He sets another beer in front of her anyway. “You look like you need it,” he says, offering her another smile and a light tap on the counter beside her hand.

Lena nods quickly, “Thank you,” she says, pinching her lips tight as she reaches for her purse. She scrambles for her phone in the bag, fingers clumsy with dread. She struggles to navigate the lock screen, mundane acts turned arduous in the eclipsing numbness of her shock.

She types out a few panicked texts to Kara before she remembers to breathe, holding her breath tight in her chest, coaxing her heartbeats back to normality, calming the stuttering crests of her pulse back to their familiar metronome. She sets her phone on the bar, face up, and fixes her eyes on a point along the back wall, the screen catching in her peripheral.

Lena waits.

**

Lena only lasts ten minutes before she tries to call her. She considers those 600 seconds an impressive feat, each one infused with the weight of a lifetime.

She closes her eyes as the phone rings endlessly, massaging her temple with two fingers, face set in rigid composure. Her only tell is the anxious, rapid tapping of her foot against the leg of her stool.

The door of the bar opens, letting in a gust of cold air and a surge of noise, the voices of a crowd loitering on the curb outside filtering into the bar, muting the shrill electronic ring of Kara’s unresponsive phone on the other line.

Lena frowns in annoyance, pressing her cell closer to her ear and shooting a look of displeasure at the bar’s entrance, ready to roll her eyes at another surge of frenzied college kids.

For the second time that night, Lena’s expectations are entirely shattered.

It’s Kara, framed in the doorway of the bar, looking harried, messy, and entirely and impossibly beautiful. Her hair is caught in a half-hearted ponytail, more down that up, stray hairs clinging to the back of her neck, tucked carelessly behind her ears. One sleeve of her shirt is rolled above her elbow, while the other is limp at her wrist, cuff unbuttoned and disheveled. Lena is almost positive her skirt is on backwards.

Lena doesn’t thinks she has ever been more attracted to someone in her life.

The stark light of a neon sign fractures through the street side window, illuminating Kara’s face in an electric glow, warming the hard line of her cheekbones, glinting sharp off her glasses’ lens. Lena feels that desire, tempered so long into obedience, claw hungry in her chest. Caught in the enchantment of Kara’s allure, Lena struggles to remember any of the reasons why she is starving herself of this.

Kara begins to weave her way through the crowd, muttering apologies as she pushes through throngs of half-drunk businessmen, sparing a tight, polite smile for a suited man, more intoxicated than most, that she has to gently nudge out of her way.

Her eyes are trained on the clusters of table to Lena’s left, scanning, and Lena realizes she’s looking for someone, looking for her, and the intoxicating high of her relief isn’t enough to entirely dull the selfish rush of pleasure she feels at the eager way Kara searches the room.

Lena can pinpoint the exact moment that Kara’s eyes find her, watches a smile pull involuntarily at Kara’s mouth, catching at her eyes, dimpling her cheeks.

(Lena saw her first, Lena always sees her first.)

Kara changes direction toward the bar and Lena pushes away from her stool, too dizzy with relief to closely monitor her actions. Her rational thoughts scream at her to act adult about this, to ask Kara if she is okay, to maturely inquire about the status of her health and safety, perhaps allow herself a quick touch to Kara’s shoulder if the moment feels right.

But then Kara is standing in front of her, hapless and needlessly apologetic and kind, so careful to keep a polite distance between them, respectful hands caught behind her back, head tilted to the side in concern.

Lena throws herself forward, arms looping around Kara’s neck, burying her face in Kara’s chest and marveling at the _life_ of her. Her skin feels impossibly warm, and Lena pulls away just far enough to study Kara’s face, her hands coming up to trace carefully at the strong lines of Kara’s chin, her jaw, painting careful fingertips down the soft curve of Kara’s cheek.

She smells like gunpowder and fire, but the skin below the parted collar of Kara’s shirt—three buttons undone—is deceptively clean, and Lena traces her eyes from the divot of Kara’s neck to the long line of her throat, aching to bite and consume and protect.

She isn’t wearing her suit, Lena realizes, she must have discarded it somewhere between the fighting ground and the bar, and Lena feels another impossible throb of affection. Kara had dropped everything to find her, and Lena isn’t sure that she deserves this kind of adoration.

Kara is looking at her carefully, bottom lip tucked into her mouth, supplicating herself to Lena’s near-frenzied examination. At some point during Lena’s desperate hug, Kara’s hands found their way to Lena’s waist, and she keeps them there, splayed over the jut of her hipbone, fingers catching at the waistband of Lena’s skirt.

“Are you okay?” Lena finally manages, feeling keenly embarrassed at her overreaction, at the cling of her hands on Kara’s skin, but she’s still too shaken to convince herself to let go.

Kara hums her affirmation, nudging imperceptibly forward, “Are _you_ okay?”

Lena laughs, this startled abrupt thing, cupping her hand at Kara’s cheek, “I’m not the one who just had a near-death experience.”

Kara pinches her mouth to the side, looking almost embarrassed at the attention, “It wasn’t that bad.”

Lena gestures desperately at the TV, feeling her voice pitching in residual panic, “I saw you,” she lowers her voice, acutely aware of the other patrons of the bar for the first time since Kara entered, “He threw you through a _pillar_.”

Kara shrugs slightly, careful not to jar herself from Lena’s hold, “It was just concrete.”

Lena opens her mouth to say more, feeling a wild blend of exasperation and heady relief. She moves her hand to gesture again but Kara catches it instead, folding Lena’s fingers in her own and bringing their hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to the center of Lena’s palm.

It effectively quiets her, sparking something low in her chest, and she feels embarrassment again, unaccustomed to losing her composure for anything. For anyone. She starts to return to her senses, to the world of logic, and she loosens her arms from Kara’s neck, taking a small step back.

Kara coaxes her toward the counter with a light hand on her lower back, waiting until Lena settles on her stool before she takes a seat at the one next to her, subtly inching it closer until their knees press close under the lip of the bar.

Lena takes a long sip of her drink, watching Kara out of the corner of her eye, half-worried that she will lose her if she looks away.

“I’m sorry I texted so much,” Lena says quietly, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, “the news broadcast just made it look so…”

Kara smiles, nudging at Lena’s leg with her own, “It’s okay, I don’t mind.” She frowns, “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Lena shakes her head, disbelieving, and reaches over to pinch at Kara’s hand, pausing to rub away another streak of soot that she finds smudged across the ridge of her knuckles, “How did you know where to find me, anyway?”

Kara laughs, “You come here almost every Friday, Lena. It wasn’t exactly a hard guess.” Her face softens, one hand moving to the surface of the counter, her fingers a breadth away from Lena’s own, “Mind if I join you?”

Lena nods over-eager, then—remembering herself—toys with the peeling label on her beer bottle, taming her face into polite nonchalance, “As long as you aren’t too busy.”

Kara smiles, almost shy, pinching her mouth to the side and tapping a finger on the bar, “Never.”

Lena lets her hand close the miniscule gap that separates them, playing her fingertips over the long lines of Kara’s fingers, inadvertently shifting closer, the residual panic in her chest lulling quiet as Kara spares her a glance from under her lashes.

“Well,” says Lena, low, soft, “for once I don’t want to be the only one of us drinking.”

Kara brightens at this, turning her hand under Lena’s and grasping at her fingers, “Alex and her girlfriend are at their favorite bar tonight.” She fixes Lena with a look, sly and over-pleased, “I can actually drink there.” Her gaze catches like she just remembered something, fixing at a point above Lena’s head, “Not that I should.”

Lena laughs, already starting to stand, steadying her descent from the stool with Kara’s iron grip, the strength an incongruity in hands as soft as hers. “Oh I think you definitely should.”

Kara stands too, their hands still clasped between them. She doesn’t seem to notice, fishing in her pocket for her phone with her other hand, clicking the screen awake to check the time. Lena is helpless with the feel of her, overly aware of the slide of Kara’s palm against her own, the heat of Kara’s skin igniting a flush across her chest, at the high arch of her cheeks.

Kara turns to face her, wrinkling her nose, ducking in close so Lena can hear her over the chatter of the bar. She overshoots, nose at Lena’s temple, mouth tickling warm at her ear. “Do you think we can stop by my apartment,” she laughs, and the raspy sound of it bites low in Lena’s stomach, “I really need a shower.”

Lena swallows hard, shivering despite herself. She hopes her voice doesn’t betray the short circuits sparking through her body, “Yes, that’s fine.”

Kara pulls back, smiling, tugging at their joined hands to guide Lena toward the door. Lena follows, gaze catching on the tail of Kara’s dress shirt, untucked, and tries not to think about the smooth, muscled skin just barely concealed by the mussed fabric.

**

Kara holds open her apartment door, ushering Lena inside, ducking her head in a smile once Lena crosses the threshold.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been over,” Kara says, biting her bottom lip into her mouth as she fumbles her keys and phone onto the kitchen table. She averts her eyes from Lena’s, suddenly fully invested in tugging her hair free from its messy ponytail, running her hands through the tangled waves, “I’ve missed it.”

Though neither say it, though they make no reference to the memories, the room is suddenly drowning in them:

Kara’s hips crowding Lena against the sink, breath hot on her neck, hands framing her waist.

Lena splayed on the kitchen counter, Kara panting against the crux of her shoulder and neck, mouthing bruises into the skin of Lena’s throat. Reminders that had set Lena aching every time she stripped bare in front of her bathroom mirror.

Kara cleaning dishes slowly, brow furrowed in thought, turning to look her, soapsuds caught in wisps of her hair.

Kara bowed by impossible melancholy, framed in the soft light of a dying day, hands reaching for the buttons of her shirt.

Lena hasn’t been here since that night, and she can’t even remember if the sun sets like it used to.

Kara sighs sharply and the sound jars Lena from her thoughts. Lena turns toward her to speak, to ask again if she’s okay, to check in just one final time, but the words die in her throat.

Kara stands angled toward the window, hands still combing through her loose hair, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose.

Like before, Lena can see both of them: The rigid strength in her shoulders is Supergirl, and so is the soot that mars her skin and the weary line of her brow. The way she fixes her glasses—two fingers at the junction of the frame, the soft line of her chin, the tilt of her hips, is so entirely Kara.

But then she turns toward Lena—lips curling around the start of a sentence, hands careful at her waist, her irises an impossible, gentle blue—and Lena sees neither day nor night.

Instead she just sees _her_. Like stars ornamenting a sun-lit sky, like an eclipse, the sun and moon caught in the same universal breathe.

She’s Kara and she’s Supergirl and she’s entirely and completely her own.

Lena sees her and she aches.

Kara moves closer, hands caught in a hover between them, always waiting for permission before she closes the gap. “Lena, did you hear me? Are you okay?”

Lena shakes her head quickly, trying to free herself from her daze. Though she hasn’t moved, though she still stands just over the threshold, she feels dazed, exhausted. She automatically leans forward into Kara’s touch, shivering as Kara’s hands catch just above her elbows, stroking careful lines from her shoulders to forearms.

Lena shakes her head again, “What?”

Kara ducks to look closer at Lena’s face, lips pulling down in concern, eyes a startling liquid blue. “I asked if it’s alright if I take my shower now?” She tilts her head, thumbs rubbing light circles at Lena’s bicep, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lena attempts a laugh, affectionately nudging at Kara’s shoulder, “Of course, Kara.”

Kara pulls back, smiling. “Okay, good.” She tugs at her shirt, pulling a face, “I can literally smell myself right now, so I’m gonna…” she trails off, hooking her thumb at the bathroom door.

Lena smiles as Kara turns to walk toward the bathroom, watching her stumble slightly when she steals one last glance at Lena over her shoulder. Lena chokes down a laugh, feeling affection bloom warm and heady in her chest. The bathroom door clicks shut and Lena casts her eyes around the apartment, trying to distract herself from the sound of Kara moving behind the closed door, struggling to forget that Kara is about to be showering less than twenty feet away.

There is the unmistakable sound of clothes hitting the ground, and Lena hears water hiss on, steam leaking out from under the door in spiraling tendrils. Lena does her best not to picture it. She’s not picturing Kara unbuttoning her shirt and rolling the top of her jeans over her hips, she’s not picturing Kara stepping under the showerhead, gasping at the heat, and she’s especially not thinking about Kara being naked, all that lean muscle and bare soot-stained skin just a room away.

Lena feels heat rush into her stomach, her cheeks, and she grasps for her purse, desperate for any distraction. She feels downright voyeuristic, disrespectful even, and she reminds herself that Kara’s body is nobody’s but her own.

But God sometimes—

Lena grips hard at her lipstick, rescued from the side-pocket of her purse, and crosses to a small mirror Kara has mounted on the wall. Lena studies her reflection carefully, ignoring the red flush clinging to her cheeks, focusing instead on her pale bottom lip, her lipstick worn away from her teeth’s constant worrying at the bar. She uncaps the tube, redrawing her lips, pristine and sharp, in a crisp, rose-petal red. She smooths her hair back into a neat ponytail, suddenly overly concerned with looking her best, with looking desirable. Instinctively she tugs the neckline of her shirt down, sparing her cleavage a glance, feeling all too much like a high schooler with a crush—smearing on strawberry lip gloss and purchasing her first push-up bra.

She’s honestly considering re-doing her eye-liner when a harsh buzz interrupts her thoughts. Lena startles, one hand clutched to her chest, whipping around to search for the noise. It’s coming from a cellphone, vibrating noisily on the table. Lena steps closer, recognizing Alex’s picture lighting up the screen of Kara’s phone. Lena’s eyes fly wide, because she knows the polite thing to do is ignore it, but logically—knowing that Kara is Supergirl—lives could literally be hanging in the balance.

Lena makes her decision.

“Hello?”

“Um…hi?” The voice on the other end—presumably Alex’s—sounds intensely confused. “Who is this?”

Lena is immediately aware that she made the wrong choice, but it’s too late now, and she forges forward anyway. “It’s Lena.” A pause. “Luthor.” Another pause, this one longer. “Kara’s busy.”

“Oh?” Alex just sounds amused now, voice tipping dangerously close to laughter, “Is that so?”

Lena hates that she feels so nervous. She hosts international conference calls almost daily, entertaining and charming the top names in the tech world without breaking a sweat, but having Kara’s big sister on the other end of the line is setting her squirming.

“Yes?” Lena finally manages, voice hinging embarrassingly close to uncertainty, “is everything alright?”

Alex laughs, and Lena thinks she hears her say something to someone else at her side of the call, then: “Can I talk to her actually?”

Lena physically startles away from the receiver, “I’m sorry”

“Kara. Can I talk to her?”

“I—” Lena stutters, “I suppose?” Then, more firmly, “I’ll get her, just a minute.”

She lowers the phone to clench it in her palm, starting toward the bathroom door slowly, ignoring the pulse thudding hard in her chest. When she gets outside the door, all Lena can hear is the harsh fall of water, and she can feel the thick heat pressing at the other side of the doorway. She raises her fist and raps lightly, cooling her voice into something she hopes sounds composed and calm.

“Kara?” She waits a beat with no answer and knocks again, harder this time. “Kara? It’s me.”

There’s another thick pause before she hears Kara shout over the water, “You can just come in.”

Lena straightens, trying the door handle and finding it unlocked. The heavy pulse has sunk to her stomach now, warm and throbbing and unquenchable. She pushes in the door slowly, stepping into the stifling heat of the small room. Though she swore she wouldn’t look, her eyes are drawn to the thin shower curtain, to the rolling steam curling at the top, to the shape behind the near-opaque plastic.

She can’t really see anything, just the shape of her, long, lithe, the darker shadow of her hair, the curve of her hips. Lena wrenches her gaze away with an almost audible gasp, training her eyes on the mirror instead, the glass fogged up with frosted condensation. She traces a finger through the beaded water absently, a bid for distraction, drawing swirls and lines across the surface.

There’s a sound of the curtain just slightly drawing back, and out of the corner of her eyes Lena can see Kara peeking at her from around the plastic, face flush with warmth, dripping water from the wet fall of her hair. “What’s up?”

“Um,” Lena half stutters, fingers still raised to the mirror, “Your sister called?” She holds up the phone with her other hand, gaze trained determinedly forward, “She says she needs to talk to you.”

“Oh!” Kara says brightly, she reaches out around the curtain, and Lena can’t help but look at the long stretch of her arm, skin slick with water and humidity. She fumbles the phone into Kara’s hand, her fingers coming away wet where they touch.

Kara laughs. “Sorry.”

Lena feels the throb drop lower. “Alright, well, now that’s done, I’m—” She’s out the door before she can finish the sentence, feeling foolish and flustered and completely unaware that she spent the last twenty seconds drawing looping hearts all over the bathroom mirror.

**

When Kara comes out of the bathroom, Lena is perched on the edge of the couch, fingers twisted in her lap. She looks up as Kara enters the room, hands immediately shooting up to cover her eyes, mouth snapping shut. There’s that feeling—like she’s a teen again, stumbling her way through a newfound attraction for women, swallowing heat every time a pretty girl looks at her.

Kara is standing caught in the doorway in her towel, hair dripping down her back, hands holding the pinched edge of the terrycloth above her breasts.

“Kara,” Lena says, trying to keep her voice controlled, “Is there any reason you aren’t wearing clothes right now?”

There is a beat of silence before Kara sighs out a small laugh, bare feet padding soft toward her.

“I left my change of clothes in my bedroom.” Lena can hear the smile still caught in her voice, humor curling her words high.

Lena slowly drops her hands from her face, blinking her eyes open to find Kara standing closer than before. Though a wide breadth of space still separates them, they are near enough that the air feels molten. Heat clings high in Lena’s cheeks, and she bites hard at her bottom lip, soothing the sting with her tongue as she focuses on Kara’s face.

She struggles to keep her gaze there, trained on the pink shower-heated flush of Kara’s skin, ignoring the expanse of leg that stretches from underneath the damp cling of the towel. Kara shifts from one foot to the other, calf muscles flexing dagger-sharp as she fidgets, forearms tensing as she tightens her hold at her chest. Kara opens her mouth, wetting her lips before she closes her mouth again, words caught high in her throat.

“What?” Lena hushes, biting back the longing that seeps, viscous and palpable, from every throb of her chest.

Kara swallows hard, and Lena can see the movement in her throat. She notices water droplets clinging at the slope of Kara’s collarbones and immediately wrenches her gaze back to Kara’s eyes.

“The truth?” Kara says quietly, words dropped low, pulling rough in her throat.

Lena shakes her head, brow creasing. “Always, Kara.”

Kara exhales slowly, bare shoulders heaving with the movement. “When you look at me like that,” she says, tilting her head as her eyes pin Lena hard against the couch, “I want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” Lena says, the noise involuntary, more a sigh than anything, ripped free from her chest. “I—”

Kara doesn’t let her finish, just steps abruptly forward to dodge around the couch, scooting quickly for her room. “I’m sorry,” she calls over her shoulder, already covering her words with a forced laugh. “I’m just—” She breaks off quickly and Lena hears a soft thud that sounds suspiciously like Kara running into the doorjamb. A scuffle, a brief lull, and then—“I’ll be ready to go in a minute!”

Lena sinks into the couch and massages hard at her temple. She closes her eyes, letting her head fall back with a thud, listening to the muted shuffle of Kara in her room.

She doesn’t picture Kara buttoning a skin-tight collared shirt over the hard line of her stomach, doesn’t picture her shimmying into a pair of slacks or a hip hugging skirt—hem rolled to the sharp angle of her hip bones. She certainly doesn’t picture the water droplets that still cling to the hollow of Kara’s throat, to the round of her breasts.

Lena closes her eyes and thinks of nothing at all.

When she opens them, moonlight drips through the parted window, flooding the room in currents of silver light. It bathes Kara as she steps out of her room and into Lena’s peripheral. A red dress clings tight against her hips, baring the broad set of her shoulders and hard line of her arms. The hemline dips low, blood red fabric a stark contrast to the pale swell of her cleavage.

It’s not a cape, but its close enough.

Kara steps toward her, holding out her hand to Lena, still sitting star-struck on the couch. “Ready to go?”

Lena nods wordlessly and Kara leans down, taking Lena’s hand in her own, palms pressed close, and pulls her to her feet. Lena stumbles—hindered by three-inch heels and the constraint of her skirt—and Kara catches her easily, two hands at her waist, holding her steady against the solid warmth of her chest.

“I’ve got you,” Kara whispers, eyes catching deep and dark and certain on Lena’s own.

Awash in moonlight, Lena drowns.

*

When they get to the bar, Alex is already there. She’s leaning low across the pool table, one eye squinted shut as she lines up her shot. The girlfriend—Maggie—is positioned behind her, a hand at the small of her back. The motion is intimate, and her eyes are a deep liquid soft as she looks at Alex, but Kara and Lena can still hear her trash talking from across the room.

“C’mon, Danvers,” Maggie teases, jostling Alex with her hips to throw her off balance, “Just give in to the inevitable.”

Alex turns her head to glare, momentarily distracted from her show-down with the eight ball. “Dream on, Sawyer.”

Maggie shrugs, lips tilting into a self-satisfied smirk. “Just face it, You’re gonna miss this shot, and then I’m going to get to—” her voice drops off and she leans down, finishing her sentence close to Alex’s ear, too quiet for Lena to hear.

Lena furrows her brow, watching Alex’s face flush an impossible red, her teeth biting down hard at the plush of her bottom lip. Lena turns to Kara to comment, only to find Kara’s face is red too, her blush staining the tips of her ears. Kara turns to Lena and shakes her head quickly.

“Sometimes super hearing sucks,” she mumbles, tugging at Lena’s hand before she can comment, “Let’s let them know we’re here before I am completely traumatized.”

Lena laughs, folding her hand in Kara’s own, thrilling at the warm press of Kara’s fingers. She lets Kara lead them through the dimly lit bar, winding around high-topped tables and watery pools of fluorescence. The décor is rustic and dingy, roughhewn walls and sticky floors completing the careless motif.

They are almost across the room before Lena notices the occupants themselves. A blue skinned Aloi slumped over a pint of a purple liquid, the jagged ridges of his forehead buried in his hand as he mutters to the figure next to him—another humanoid, this one with a third eye blinking lazily at the crown of his skull.

Once Lena remembers to look, she sees the entire room is a mix of aliens and humans. Or—she realizes—perhaps just more aliens who can pass as human, who have adapted habits or camouflage to blend in with this world, to survive in a society built against them.

As she stares, one man turns to look at her, normal except for sharply filed teeth, bared in a snarl between parted lips. She winces away despite herself, feeling a keen jolt of fear stab below her ribs. Kara makes a small noise of surprise at Lena’s shock, catching Lena in her arms, pulling her close against her chest. Lena’s fear immediately quiets at Kara’s touch, and she is overwhelmed with guilt instead.

Sometime Lena thinks a lifetime with the Luthor name has poisoned her, that their hatred runs through her veins, thick as blood. For the first time, she thinks she is truly beginning to understand why Kara didn’t tell her, why she lied for so long.

She feels shame catch acid sharp in her throat, and she nearly turns to leave.

It’s Kara who stops her, arms tightening around Lena’s chest, ducking her head until her lips press against her cheek. She mouths a kiss against Lena’s skin, stroking her thumb over the thrill of Lena’s heartbeat.

“You’re okay,” she murmurs, another stroke, waiting for the beats to slow, “I’ve got you.”

Lena turns her face into Kara’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to be—”

Kara hums softly, pressing her hand flat against Lena’s chest now, her pulse throbbing against her palm. “No one expects you to be completely used to us yet, Lena.” She starts to loosen her grip, “What matters is that you’re trying.”

Lena exhales slowly, feeling the last tendrils of fear dissipate, heartbeat finally leveling. She swallows hard, looking at the floor, unable to meet Kara’s eyes. “Sometimes I worry that—” She trails off, words tripping hard over her tongue, “What if I—” She swallows again, raising her hands in front of her chest, palm up, a plea. She starts again: “I can’t be like him.”

Kara catches at her wrists, pulling her closer, only relinquishing her grasp to nudge a finger under Lena’s chin, coaxing her eyes back up.

“You’re nothing like him,” Kara says slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly, nodding into her words. “You’re _good,_ Lena Luthor.” Kara smiles, this soft, quiet thing, nudging her forehead against Lena’s own reverently, “I couldn’t feel like this about you if you weren’t.”

Lena feels a catch in her chest, something deep unhinged, raw and wild and wanting. Her heart flutters wildly, and Lena is breathless with the weight of this. She feels heady and dazzled, tilting her chin up to meet Kara’s gaze.

She wonders if this is what it feels to be loved.

Kara catches Lena’s face in her hands, stroking at her cheekbones, brow creased again with worry. She tilts her head as though she is listening, mouth pursed curiously.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks, concern coloring her voice low. “Your heart is going really fast again.”

Lena’s mouth falls open, embarrassment lancing through her chest, and she bats away Kara’s hands. “Stop spying,” she hisses, taking a step back and covering her chest as though that will quiet the sound. “I’m just—”

Kara’s face lights in a slow grin, realization dawning across her face. “Oh!” she says, then lower, biting at her lip, over-pleased, “you like me.”

Lena rolls her eyes, shoving at Kara’s shoulder, annoyed when she doesn’t even pretend it affects her. “Can we just get you drunk now?”

Kara shrugs, still grinning, “Anything for you, Ms. Luthor.”

She ignores Lena’s glare in favor of grabbing at her hand, steering her toward her sister, Lena’s heart still beating wildly in the space between them.

**

Kara is halfway through a low crystalline tumbler of amber liquid. She lists sideways, smiling at Lena over the rim when she manages to catch her eye. Alex watches with amusement as Kara takes another drink, pulling a face after every sip, wrinkling her nose exaggeratedly.

“Pacing yourself, Kara?”

Kara just glares, ducking away from Alex’s outstretched hand. Lena watches them silently, feeling that familiar ache of longing at the easy way they move, at the grin that pulls insistent at Kara’s lips despite herself as Alex teases her relentlessly.

Maggie stands at Lena’s shoulder, watching them fondly, propped against the corner of the pool table.

“They’re ridiculous,” Maggie says, but Lena can hear the grin in her voice, can see the affection in the relaxed tilt of her hips.

Alex and Kara are jostling each other in earnest now, and Lena watches Kara’s drink slosh dangerously in her glass as she combats Alex with a mewl of protest and an open palmed shove. Her face is flushed, points of red burning high in her cheeks, and when she catches Lena’s eye she smiles, sloppy and over-wide.

Lena feels a tug hard in her chest, captivated by the girl before her. Kara attempts a wink—an over-exaggerated blink with both eyes—and Lena muffles her laugh into her palm. Alex seems ready to take advantage of Kara’s newfound distraction, but Maggie stops her with a hand at her waist and a hard tug at her belt-loop.

Alex feigns resistance, but Lena can see how quickly she caves, falling into Maggie easily, one hand buried in her dark hair.

It’s disconcerting to see her like this. Lena has watched Alex toss a full grown man over her shoulder, her heel grinding his throat into the pavement. Alex is hard edges and a granite jawline, tempered steel and gunpowder, but Lena watches as she ducks in close to press her smile against Maggie’s lips, hand sifting carefully through her curls.

Kara watches them distantly, mouth tilted up at the corners, swirling her drink absently. Her cheeks are flushed dark, blush clinging at the smooth column of her throat, the high jut of her collarbones. Lena watches as Kara shifts restlessly, taught muscles shifting in her forearms, tension flexing in the sharp cut of her biceps.

Lena doesn’t realize how openly she has been staring until Kara catches her, eyes fixing dark and curious on Lena’s own. Lena bites down instinctively on her lip, feeling caught, insatiable and hopelessly flustered. Kara watches the movement, the alcohol making her cloudy and obvious, hesitating only a moment before she closes the distance between them.

Kara presses close and Lena lets her, arm slipping around Kara’s waist, tilting her forehead against Kara’s temple.

“Everything alright, Kara?” Lena asks, soft and curious, enthralled by the warmth that radiates off Kara in waves.

If Alex is tactic and cold anger, all jagged edges and bite, then Kara is power and heat. Lena has seen the wildfire that licks molten through Kara’s bones, the fury and grief that wars beneath her skin. When Kara smiles, brilliant and sharp and pure, it’s easy to forget that her eyes have seen the destruction of worlds.

Lena doesn’t know how she bears it, how Kara shoulders the burden of a civilization lost. Lena pulls Kara closer, coaxing her to lean her weight against her side, and thinks she can help Kara carry it, just for a little while.

“I’m good,” Kara says, sighing softly as she settles tighter in Lena’s hold, “I feel very nice.” Her expression sharpens, and she looks at Lena with an easy wonder. “You feel very nice.” She turns her face to press a kiss at the bridge of Lena’s nose, “You smell good.”

Lena laughs, wrinkling her nose at the tickle of Kara’s lips against her skin. “Do I?”

Kara nods eagerly, nuzzling soft at Lena’s hairline, humming her agreement against her skin.

Lena pinches at her side playfully, and Kara watches the motion curiously before catching at her hand, smoothing her thumb against Lena’s palm. Lena looks up to find Alex watching them sharply from underneath the mussed slant of her bangs. She quirks an eyebrow when she meets Lena’s gaze, and Lena stiffens, preparing for a barrage of admonishment and venom.

Instead, Alex pulls away from Maggie, their hands still caught between them, and reaches for Lena, fingers circling her wrist.

“Do you play pool?”

**

Lena bends low over the table, the tip of the cue resting in the groove between her thumb and forefinger, her right hand wrapped at the stock. She hums lowly, squinting one eye to align the shot, unconsciously moving into the hips that press close at her back.

An arm wraps around her shoulder, adjusting Lena’s grip, hips jostling her more firmly against the table.

“You should take it, Luthor,” the voice says in her ear, “Now that I’ve showed you how it’s done.”

Lena scoffs, readjusts, and takes the shot. The cue ball hits her solid square, sending it spinning into the far left pocket. Lena straightens with a smirk, turning into the woman who has settled behind her.

“It’s simple geometry, Detective. I am well equipped to handle this on my own.”

Maggie grins. She’s close enough that Lena can’t help but fixate on the deep dimple in her cheek, the smell of her perfume. Maggie shrugs, absently brushing a strand of dark hair out of Lena’s eyes.

“Worth a shot.”

Lena laughs, sparing a glance to Alex and Kara who are grousing off to the side, propped against a high bar table, nursing matching beers. Alex is gripping so tight to her pool stick that—even without the signature Danver’s super strength—the wood threatens to splinter. Kara, well past tipsy now, leans disheveled and flushed against Alex’s side, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

Lena tilts her mouth at Maggie’s ear. “Do you make a habit of teasing people who can kill you?”

Maggie winks. “Only when they make it so fun.” She reaches out to pinch at Lena’s hip, disguising it as a caress, watching Alex narrow her eyes, knuckles whitening. “You should go rescue little Danvers,” she says, stepping away, “I’m gonna handle my girlfriend.”

Lena rests her pool stick against the table, taking a long draw from her drink before she makes her way toward Kara. She smiles, endeared, as Kara attempts to look busy upon her return, fumbling with a damp coaster on the table and nearly upending a line of empty bottles.

Lena nudges her with her shoulder, leaning beside her. “Having fun?”

Kara turns to her, eyes drawn wide, nodding exaggeratedly. “So much fun.” She draws the first word long, nodding into the syllables.

Lena laughs, unable to stop herself from resting her hand on Kara’s at the table, quieting her fidgeting, petting soft at her fingers. “Good.” She looks at Kara more directly, noticing the blush that paints her cheeks and neck in swathes of pink, the sweat that beads at her temple. Lena frowns, pressing her palm against Kara’s forehead. “God, Kara, you’re burning up.”

Kara sways, trying for a grin. “No you are.”

Lena rolls her eyes, lacing their fingers and tugging her away from the table. “Let’s get you some air.” She pries Kara’s fingers from her beer, grateful that she doesn’t resist, discarding the bottle with the other glasses.

Kara pouts, two vertical creases carved at her brow. “But what about Maggie and Alex?”

Lena looks around the bar and finds them pressed close in the back corner, Alex’s teeth at Maggie’s neck, hands snaking up the back of her jacket. She laughs. “I think they’ll be alright.”

Kara noticeably calms as soon as they push out into the cool night air, tilting her head to the sky, exhaling in a long, slow stream. She hums quietly, rolling her shoulders, streetlamps lighting her skin in burnished gold, playing at the strong line of her nose, dousing the curve of her chin in shadow.

Lena leans against the rough brick exterior of the bar, coaxing Kara to join her. “How are you feeling?”

Kara shrugs. “Better now that I’m with you.”

There are no stars tonight, the sky choked with smog, but Kara studies the vaulting horizon as though the constellations are spread before them anyway.

“Would you like to hear another story?” Kara asks, soft, and when Lena turns to face her she is closer than before, her breath ghosting warm over Lena’s lips, her eyes blinking wide, dark pupils swallowing the iris.

Lena gestures at the sky, helpless. “Whose story?”

“Ours.”

The night shatters, washing them in silver, the flare of passing headlights jolting Lena from her daze. She jars back, makes a small noise of disquiet and Kara catches at her waist, painting soothing circles at her hipbones. Lena lets her, her eyes fluttering closed, her breath shaky, stuttered.

“Do you know what you do to me?” she asks, the words all a rush. She doesn’t mean to say it, it’s too much, too soon, but when she opens her eyes, Kara is smiling.

She tugs at Lena’s waist, pulling them tight against the wall, the shadowed eve sheltering them from curious eyes. Lena swallows hard, gripping at Kara’s forearms, fingers dimpling the skin.

If she was any less human it would bruise.

Kara tucks into her, loose, pliant, her mouth curling into a smile against Lena’s neck. Lena shivers at the light brush of lips, her body turned molten at the faintest pressure. Kara’s breath is warm, humid, and Lena absently tips further into the press of her mouth, moves until Kara’s nose and lips crush against her neck.

It isn’t a kiss, not quite, but Lena gasps anyway, tilting her head back, eyes finding the slate-gray sky.

Kara murmurs something low against her skin, the words jumbled and unfamiliar, and Lena strains to understand. Her voice sounds smooth, accented, her syllables slick against Lena’s throat, and it takes her a moment to realize Kara isn’t speaking English at all.

Lena strokes down Kara’s arms, finds her hand and smooths over her knuckles, guides her palms higher on her waist.

“Kara,” she says, reticent, small, and Kara comes willingly, pulling back until they are face to face, her skin flushed, eyes wide.

She wants to press herself into Kara, chest to chest, hip to hip, fold herself into the lithe, lean of her until she can’t remember anything but the wet, hot of Kara’s mouth.

She wants Kara to kiss her until she bruises, her tongue at her neck, her fingers searing bright against the shallow curve of her ribs.

She wants Shakespearian declarations carved from revered prose, wants star-crossed revelations to fall from Kara’s bowed lips.

Instead.

“I should get you home,” Lena says. She shrugs free of Kara’s grasp carefully, smoothing her palms over her rumpled blouse, turning away before she can see the disappointment dim Kara’s smile.

Kara says nothing, just nods, pinching her mouth to the side, studying Lena’s face carefully. There is still a messy lilt to her, her eyes glossy, but she seems to have somewhat sobered, her metabolism and the cool air tugging her back to center.

“I should get my purse,” Kara says, quiet, jerking her thumb at the bar door, “and say bye to Alex and Maggie. Wait here?”

Lena nods, swallowing hard, feeling regret and guilt weigh heavy in her gut, cold lead settling in the pit of her stomach.

Kara disappears through the entrance taking the night’s calm with her. Lena doesn’t even have time to call them a driver before a siren splits the air, wailing harsh across the city, blue lights careening through the distant downtown.

Lena exhales shakily, her head falling back against the wall. She knows what this means.

The bar door slams open and Supergirl is silhouetted against the dim interior. Her cape drapes crimson across broad shoulders and her mouth presses into a tight line, expression hard, chin tilted high. When she turns to face Lena her face briefly softens, shoulders curling inward as she absently reaches a hand toward Lena’s cheek, dropping it back to her side before they touch.

“I think—”

Lena cuts her off before she can finish. “Of course, Supergirl. Go, I’ll be fine.”

Kara smiles, raising one hand to the sky and tossing Lena a wink. She crouches and pushes off the stoop before spiraling into the air in an electric crackle of energy. Lena feels her stomach lurch, her heart stuttering high in her chest as she arches her neck to find Kara, a blur of blue and red fragmented against the smog-heavy sky.

And oh _God_. She can’t breathe for wanting her.

“Wait,” she calls, the words tearing free from her throat, unbound. She knows what it sounds like: broken and hoarse, wanting, and she watches Supergirl falter once in the air before curling back toward her, flying toward the ground until they are just an arms breadth away, her mouth twisting around the start of a question .

Lena doesn’t wait for her to touch down, doesn’t give her time to speak, just arches onto her tiptoes and wraps her arms around Kara’s neck, dragging her into a kiss. Kara makes a small noise of surprise, her eyes flaring wide, before she kisses back, her hands settling at the slim taper of Lena’s waist, lashes fluttering against her cheek.

Lena feels her chest ache and expand, the hungry bite of Kara’s mouth melting between her ribs, her breast, her bones, filling her with a liquid heat and reckless abandon that throbs low in her stomach.

Just before midnight on a Friday night, in the weed entrenched back lot of an Alien bar, Lena Luthor kisses Kara Danvers until she remembers how to breathe.

Lena has to pull away first, unwinding her arms from Kara’s neck and rocking back onto solid ground. Kara’s lips stay parted, her eyes a half-lidded daze, still hovering horizontal off of the asphalt, their faces even.

The sirens are still keening, the sound blurring into the choking city cacophony, and Lena and Kara seem to remember the impending emergency all at once. Kara’s face flushes and when she tries to speak her words are a jumbled stutter.

Lena looks at her feet, suddenly bashful, and laughs low, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Supergirl,” she says, tilting her chin back up to meet Kara’s eyes, a smile curling at red, kiss bruised lips, “Don’t you have a world to save?”

Kara’s answer is to press in for one more fleeting kiss before she grins, bolting back into the night, rocketing along the skyline before hurtling downtown.

Lena tilts her head back and briefly, though the night is hazy with light and mist, she swears she can see the stars.

**  
Lena flicks on her bedroom light and rubs hard over her eyes, yawning into her fist. Despite the quiet, shadow-hazy cab ride home, she is still punch drunk from the kiss. She feels the imprint of it against the curve of her bottom lip, remembers the wet hint of Kara’s tongue, and shivers.

She kicks off her heels, padding barefoot across the cool hardwood floor to click on the TV mounted in the corner of her bedroom, tossing the remote into the pillowed plush of her comforter. She sheds her skirt and blouse easily, sighing in relief as she unclasps her bra, slipping a well-worn cotton tee over her head.

She rubs her thumb at the jut of her hipbone carefully, remembering the press of Kara’s hands at her waist, the static-shock of the memory lighting in her chest. She feels doubts press tight at her peripheral and bullies them away, letting the alcohol-sated slur of Kara against her neck be the only thing that weighs heavy on her mind.

Erebus curls at the corner of the doorframe and looks at her before slinking off. Lena glares after him, eyes catching at the muted TV in the process.

For the second time that night, she finds Supergirl on the screen.

She is standing in front of a cordoned off crime scene, yellow tape and uniformed officers crisscrossing in the background of the shot. The reporter next to her, coiffed and blazered, holds a handheld mic to her lips.

“I’m here on the corner of Broad and Harrison with National City’s caped hero who just wrapped up her third arrest of the night,” the woman says, eyeing the camera before turning to Kara. “Care to comment, Supergirl?”

Lena hurriedly turns up the volume, moving closer to the screen to get a better look at Kara. She is red-cheeked and wind-flushed, her hair a messy curtain of waves that curls around her shoulders. She props her hands on her hips, and Lena can’t help but notice the way her uniform stretches taught across her chest.

“Well,” Kara says, she’s grinning now, this toothy, beaming thing, “It’s been a good night.” She rocks on the balls of her feet, laughing a little. “A really, really good night.”

The reporter laughs too, turning back to camera. “You heard it here first, National City: Supergirl is having a good night.”

Lena can’t help but laugh as well, sinking back on her bed as the reporter signs off and Supergirl gives the camera a little wave and takes off into the sky, soaring out of frame.

Lena curls under her covers, nestling into the mattress, switching off the bedside light as an afterthought. Though her apartment rings cavernous around her, though she sleeps alone, her bed doesn’t feel as empty as it used to.

**

Lena leans against the lip of her kitchen island, a bowl of cereal sitting untouched at her elbow. She scrolls absently through her work email as the sun wavers unsteadily at the horizon, washing her reclaimed hardwood floors in soft gold, dust motes caught in the fragile columns of light.

She tries her best to think about anything but last night, of anything but Kara Danvers hovering above her, looking wind-swept and strong and eager, framed by that swallowing ache of empty sky.

The expo is quickly approaching and Jess has filled her inbox with a series of emails detailing trivial last minute decisions, from tablecloth hues to the fonts on the press passes. Lena massages her fingers at her temple, nudging her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.

If Lena has to field one more email from S.T.A.R. Labs she is going to scream.

Her phone dings three times in quick succession and she reaches for it absently, unlocking the screen with one hand, the other still hovering over the trackpad on her laptop. Lena glances at the phone out of the corner of her eye. She expects it to be Jess, or Natalie from the board, she doesn’t expect—

**Kara (6:32)** lunch?

**Kara (6:32)** today specifically

**Kara (6:32)** only if you want obviously

Lena stifles a laugh, smiling into her palm, ignoring the flutter that lights high in her chest. She taps out a quick reply, swallowing hard before she hits send. She briefly considers adding an emoji but figures that would mean venturing too far into uncharted territory.

**Lena (6:33)** is this a date Kara Danvers?

She watches the ellipses emerge on screen and holds her breath despite herself.

**Kara (6:34)** do you want it to be?

Lena pauses, fingers hovering over the keypad, chest suddenly tight, head thrumming, cloudy and wanting. She knows the safe answer, knows what she should say. She should laugh it off, treat it like a joke, sit a safe distance from Kara on her office couch over an early lunch, bite back her kisses and keep her hands politely in her own lap.

Lena should keep things dependable and platonic. Should stop fantasizing about Kara splayed kiss-bruised and wet beneath her, her hands stroking up the inside of Lena’s thighs.

Lena exhales sharply, dropping her phone to the island, sliding her glasses up her forehead to press her palms hard against her eyes.

She is standing at a precipice, teetering high above the expanse of this barren cityscape, and the fall is so terribly far.

**

**Lena (7:02)** yes

**

Kara knocks lightly on the doorframe, poking her head around the corner, grinning wide when Lena looks up from her desk. She holds up a takeout bag triumphantly, stepping over the threshold.

“Your lunch, Ms. Luthor.”

Lena snaps the lid of her laptop shut and narrows her eyes at Kara’s over-wide smile.

“I see you finally remembered how to use the door.”

Kara pouts, risking another step toward Lena, dropping the food at the low table by the couch. “I thought you liked my dramatic entrances.”

Lena stands, walking slowly around her desk, hand trailing across the glossy, lacquer surface. She watches Kara’s eyes catch on her fingers, lingering on Lena’s slow strides, and she smirks, pleased.

Kara hesitates in the middle of the office, hands tucked carefully into her pockets, chin ducked low. When their eyes meet Kara pulls her lips into her mouth, dark lashes rimming wide blue irises, pupils dilating as Lena holds her gaze.

Though the weather outside is cold, frost distorting the thick, paned glass, the sky is a steady, thoughtless blue. Sunlight fractures through the frost-bitten windows, catching at the tendrils of hair that escapes Kara’s ponytail, trailing high on her cheekbones and glinting off the lens of her glasses.

Lena feels her breath catch, Kara’s summer-bright shine lighting at Lena’s fingertips, unfurling in her stomach, ardent and warm.

( _But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun_ )

Lena takes a small step toward her, closing the gap between them, reaching out carefully to curl her fingers in Kara’s sleeve.

“I like you best like this,” Lena says, her voice dropping to a whisper, thumb tracing over the pale veins visible at the juncture of Kara’s wrist, fragile and thin and entirely too human.

Kara exhales unsteadily, moving a hand to cup at Lena’s chin, tilting it up until their breath mingles warm between them.

“Lena,” says Kara, her voice small, breakable, “can I kiss you?”

Lena hums lowly, eyes dropping to fixate on the plush bow of Kara’s lips. “I don’t usually kiss on a first date, but—”

Kara’s mouth swallows the end of her sentence, kissing her light, careful, until Lena presses back hard, catching Kara’s bottom lip between her teeth. The kiss pulses warm in her chest, dripping molten to her stomach, between her legs, buckling her knees until Kara catches at her waist, pulling her tight against her.

Lena’s hands cup Kara’s jaw, dropping to frame her throat before scrabbling weakly at her chest, tangling in her collar. Below the thin fabric of Kara’s dress shirt Lena can feel the tight-fitted tension of her spandex uniform. Panic spikes reflexively at her temples but then Kara licks wetly into her mouth, sighing low in her throat, and Lena can’t find it in herself to care.

Kara trails her mouth from Lena’s lips to her chin, nipping a bite at the strong line of Lena’s jaw before sucking hard over her pulse, laving the flat of her tongue at Lena’s neck. Lena tightens her grip on Kara’s shirt, arching her neck back, gasping into the near-empty room. Kara jars back at the noise, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Are you okay?”

Lena laughs, dropping her forehead to Kara’s chest, nosing into the starched fabric, inhaling the smell of her detergent, the floral musk of her perfume. She can’t think straight, words jumbled and riled in her head, so she just nods her head against Kara instead.

Kara pulls back slightly, waiting for Lena to meet her eyes. “Are you hungry?”

Lena smirks, pushing in close again, pressing a kiss to the slope of Kara’s collarbone. “I think I liked what we were doing.”

Kara pulls away again, obviously distressed. “Lena, you need to eat.” Lena starts to protest but Kara catches at her hand before she can, fitting their palms close, intertwining their fingers and tugging her toward the couch. “It’s a lunch date, Lena.” Kara says, and Lena doesn’t miss the blush that colors her cheekbones at the word date. “We have to do this right.”

Lena settles at her side on the cushions, helplessly endeared despite herself, watching Kara unwrap the takeout containers one-handed, the other still hooked between them.

“I got your favorite,” Kara says, peeking at Lena out of the corner of her eye, she nudges the container toward her, “I know how hard you’ve been working on the expo.”

Lena smiles, inching closer until their shoulders brush, a little disbelieving that today has found them here: pressed close on her office couch, her pulse still racing at the memory of Kara’s hands curled fast at her waist.

Lena realizes with a thrill that she can kiss Kara right now if she wants to, she doesn’t need an excuse.

She turns her head and brushes a kiss at the faint jut of Kara’s cheekbone, nosing against her cheek until Kara turns to meet her, catching her mouth in another kiss. Lena grins against her mouth, hooking her fingers in Kara’s belt loops and urging her closer.

“Y’know,” Kara manages, words fit between the smacks and pop of their lips, “I really should—” she cuts off as Lena nips hard at her bottom lip, whimpering when she soothes the bite with her tongue. Kara tries again, breathless. “I really should get some quotes about the expo.”

“Mhm,” Lena hums, only half-hearing her, running her tongue against the seam of Kara’s lips, pressing her tongue against Kara’s own when she opens her mouth.

The conversation quickly dissolves, food forgotten, and Kara pulls Lena into her lap, gasping wetly in her ear when Lena directs her attention to her neck, dragging her lips at the slope of her throat, nipping a kiss at the straining tendons in Kara’s neck.

Kara says something, jumbled, words caught between English and something else, and the slurred syllables give Lena pause.

“Kara?” she says, pulling back.

Kara answers with a low hum, fingers splayed wide just below the hem of Lena’s skirt, easily palming the curve of Lena’s thighs.  
Lena pinches light at her hip to get Kara’s attention and Kara blinks her eyes open slow. Though Lena knows to expect it, the wild blue of her eyes still startles her, stilling her tongue, leaving her as breathless as a punch to the stomach.

Lena shakes her head quickly, directing her gaze at a point above Kara’s head, trying to regain some semblance of rational thought.

“The other night, at the bar, you said something to me, and then again now. Was that—”

“Oh,” Kara says. She looks down, her face suddenly solemn, quiet. “Kryptonian, yeah.” She ducks her head. “Does it bother you?”

Lena frowns, stroking soft at Kara’s cheek until she meets her eyes. “Of course not, Kara.” She shrugs, suddenly bashful, “I feel honored that you would share that part of yourself with me.”

Kara smiles slowly, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Yeah?”

Lena smiles back. “Yeah.”

Kara strokes her thumbs lightly over the satin-soft of Lena’s thighs, watching as she shivers. “We should really eat,” she says, lowly, “Snapper will expect me back soon.”

Lena agrees, swallowing hard. “We really should. I have a meeting with investors in an hour.”

Kara nods in understanding. Lena nods in return.

Neither of them move.

**

Later that day, after Lena attends three meetings and one international skype call, Jess pulls her aside, her face flared red, and points out the line of bruises that mar the skin of Lena’s neck from her pulse point to the dip of her collarbones.

Lena locks herself in her private bathroom with her compact, leans back against the door, and laughs so hard she almost cries.

**

**Lena (4:34)** you are going to be the end of my professional career

**Kara (4:47)** i bet you say that to all the girls

**

Now that Lena has tasted freedom it’s hard to curb her appetite.

Lunch dates often dissolve into thirty minutes stolen on Lena’s office couch, pressed close and golden and aching.

Supergirl finds her late at night on her office balcony, kissing her messy and deep before spiraling back into the night at a siren’s bidding.

They make dinner in Kara’s kitchen, Kara feeding her bites in between questions about her day, lifting Lena on the counter so she can stand between her legs and suck kisses against her neck, just because.

Afterwards, Kara flies them to the roof of her building and they sit propped at the edge. Lena traces the strong line of Kara’s arm and picks constellations out of the inky vaulted sky.

Kara tells her stories in exchange for kisses and Lena thinks she will never tire of this.

**

Lena knows something is wrong before she even lands.

She’s flying funny, lopsided, her arm tucked awkwardly to her chest. Lena twists in her desk chair, watching Kara land unsteadily on the balcony, her hand grappling for the railing, the metal bowing in her grip. Her face is lit by harsh moonlight as she limps across the balcony, shouldering heavily through the unlocked door.

Lena is already halfway out of her chair, a series of panicked questions ready on her tongue, but she freezes when her eyes find Kara’s face.

Her teeth are gritted tight, her jaw muscles tense, rippling under unusually pallid skin. There’s a thin sheen of sweat at her brow, glistening on her throat, her chest, and she holds her wrist close against her body.

Holes riddle the bullet-proof fabric of her uniform, soot slashing her bare palms and cheeks. Lena even notices the quickly fading remnants of a gash curling around Supergirl—Kara’s—upper arm.

Blood smears at the harsh hinge of Kara’s jaw, at the whorls and pads of Kara’s fingertips, at the ridges of her knuckles, and oh God Lena realizes it isn’t her own.

Lena feels hysteria rise in her throat and she chokes it down, hurriedly closing the distance between them, uprooting her office chair in her rush. The clatter would usually bring Jess into the office, but Lena let everyone leave hours ago, too concerned with last minute expo details to head home herself.

“Kara,” she whispers, voice pitched high with worry, “What happened?”

Kara doesn’t respond, just looks at her, pinning her in place with a fierce, feral glare, her brow hard, lips set in a grim line. Lena instinctively reaches to touch her, strokes carefully over the insignia on her chest, and Kara’s face softens slowly, the tension easing from her jaw.

She catches Lena’s hand in her own, wordless, and brings it to her mouth, pressing a long kiss to Lena’s fingers.

Lena feels the faint, wet hint of her tongue and swallows hard, lust adding itself to the cocktail of adrenaline and confusion that pounds heavy in her chest.

“Are you hurt?”

Kara—Supergirl—rolls her shoulder thoughtfully, and Lena is suddenly reminded of that first night in her office, before stargazing and mistaken identities and too many almost-kisses to count.

“I’ll heal,” Kara says, grating and low, and Lena absently notes it is the first words she has heard Kara say all night.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Lena asks again, slower this time, her hand still caught in Kara’s grasp.

Kara shakes her head, eyes hooded and dark, and moves closer. “I’d really rather not talk right now, if that’s alright.”

She sets her hands at Lena’s waist, backing them up until Lena’s hips hit the desk, fingers digging into Lena’s skin. She ducks close then seems to think better of it, stops, and takes a step back. She hooks her hands behind her back, tilts her head.

“Can I kiss you now?”

Lena nods hurriedly, dazed and all-too willing to give in to the insistent press of Kara’s fingertips. Kara steps closer again after carelessly unclipping her cape, letting it fall in a silken pool of red at her back. She wraps one arm at Lena’s back, cupping light at her jaw with her free hand, and kisses her, all teeth and tongue and messy heat.

She smells like iron and gunpowder and sweat, and Lena bows in her grasp, pliant and aching. She lets Kara lift her onto her desk, sweeping stray papers and pens off the surface with a careless arm. Kara leans over her, hands moving to pet at her waist, kissing in long hard strokes, so unlike her usual careful affections.

“Kara,” Lena murmurs, pressing one hand to the flat of Kara’s chest, “Are you sure everything is okay?”

Kara immediately pulls back from Lena’s mouth, hair falling in a curtain around them, hands moving to press hard at the desk on either side of Lena’s hips. Lena feels herself slick against her own underwear, notices again the blood on Kara’s skin, the hard set of her brow, and feels her pulse throb lower.

There’s a sort of hollow anger settled tense below Kara’s skin, straining at her neck and shoulders, biting at her eyes, her mouth.

For the first time Lena thinks nothing of the moonlight and nothing of the sun, and only of the shadow that exists in them both.

Kara exhales shakily, dropping her head to Lena’s chest, pressing a hard kiss at the divot of her collarbone.

“I’m fine,” she says. Though her voice is muffled, her tone is still hard. Lena is about to protest again before Kara continues. “I will never let anything happen to you.”

“Kara,” Lena sighs, she scratches lightly at Kara’s back, feeling her ease against her. “I know that, sweetheart.”

Kara raises her head, eyes flashing a dangerous red before fading back to blue. She kisses her—too hard again, her mouth bruising—and Lena whimpers into her mouth, bringing her knees up around Kara’s waist, shifting until Kara is cradled in the sling of her legs.

Blood rushes in Lena’s ears, drowning the endless hum of the night-drenched city until all she hears is the wet smack of their lips and Kara’s quiet moans, uncurling from her throat in small, staccato whimpers.

Lena tangles her fingers in Kara’s hair, tilting their mouths together until their noses and chins press close, relishing in the needy press of Kara’s lips against her own.

“Baby,” she pants, pulling away, moving her hand to fit at Kara’s cheek, turning her head to press a kiss at the bridge of her nose, brushing her lips carefully over her eyelids. “Please.”

Kara gasps something a few syllables short of a response, tucking her face into the crook of Lena’s neck, breathing in short, humid bursts against the soft skin of her throat. Her fingers fumble for the zipper at Lena’s waist, tugging hard until the thin metal growls along the length of her skirt. Lena lifts her hips, letting Kara pull her skirt down her legs, pouting when the fabric catches around her knees.

Lena watches Kara kneel in front of her her, her hands curled around Lena’s calves, knees digging into the plush carpet. She considers Lena with a steady, dark gaze, tugging Lena forward until her hips hang off the edge of the desk, thumbing over her knees before settling her palms high on Lena’s thighs.

Lena exhales sharply, shifting against the cool surface of the desk, feeling suddenly exposed in the glass-walled office, black lace all that separates her from Kara’s eyes.

They’ve gotten this far before, but something has always stopped them: imminent meetings or looming copy deadlines or Kara’s careful, bashful chivalry.

But.

Time stretches vast tonight and Kara is shifting forward, pressing a hot open-mouthed kiss against the inside of Lena’s thigh, dragging her lips higher, nipping a gentle bite at the tense, straining muscle that stretches taught at the height of Lena’s leg.

Lena keens, throwing her head back, hearing more than feeling it thud hard against the desk.

Heat coils low in her stomach, simmering like stoked-embers in her belly. Lena is wound so deliciously tight she worries what will happen when she snaps.

“Okay?” Kara gasps against her skin, sucking a kiss against Lena’s skin to punctuate the question.

Lena opens her mouth to answer, but Kara moves her hands to cup at the back of Lena’s thighs, urging her hips higher, and she chokes on the words. Kara’s palms burn against Lena’s skin, and Lena can feel her breath, hot and ragged, against her.

Kara nuzzles at the coarse lace of Lena’s panties, her cheeks brushing the sensitive skin of Lena’s upper thigh, and though heat flashes liquid-hot at the quick of her, she feels something else, too.

Kara’s cheeks are wet.

Kara is crying.

Lena stills. Her panic, briefly forgotten in the whirlwind of Kara’s wanting hands and wet mouth, returns to lance sharply through her chest.

“Baby?” Lena says, leveraging herself onto her forearms, wriggling free of Kara’s hands, “Kara, what’s wrong?”

Kara’s answers is a wordless whine, and she shakes her head roughly at Lena’s retreat, moving back as though to kiss again at Lena’s skin. Lena shifts her hips back onto her desk, moving to sit, and catches Kara’s chin easily in her palm. She tilts Kara’s face toward her, and sighs out lowly, distressed, at the wet streaks that track down Kara’s cheeks, her eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“Kara,” Lena says again, biting back the fear that colors her voice, “Please tell me what happened.”

“It’s nothing,” Kara says, gasping out the words more than speaking, grating and low. “I want to keep going.”

Lena frowns, dropping Kara’s chin and pressing carefully at her chest until she moves away from the desk, letting Lena step down onto the floor. Kara watches her from her stoop on the floor, caught between slurred, heavy fatigue and a pressing, swallowing sorrow.

Lena stands frozen above her, hands hovering uncertain at her side. For a moment, the woman before her, bloodstained and heartbroken and hard, looks like a stranger.

But then—Kara raises a hand to rub hard at her eyes, gasping out a sob behind the flat heel of her hand, and when she drops her arm, raising her chin to meet Lena’s gaze, her lower lip is trembling. Lena closes the distance between them in a single stride and pulls Kara to her, one hand wrapping tight at her shoulders, the other tangling in her hair. Kara breaks immediately, melting into Lena’s embrace, burying her face in Lena’s stomach, choking back deep, wet gasps.

“I promised to protect you,” Kara keens, the words muffled in the fabric of Lena’s blouse, “I just don’t know how to save you from this.”

“Baby,” Lena sighs, petting at Kara’s hair, only half-hearing her supplications. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

At this Kara seems to right herself, pulling away enough to look up at Lena through tear-stained lashes. Lena wipes soft at Kara’s cheeks with her thumbs, rubs gentle circles at her temples, soothing her fractured syllables.

Kara heaves a sigh, nuzzling into Lena’s hand, swallowing hard. “There was an attack on the DEO.”

Lena feels her heart skip a beat, dread falling heavy to the pit of her stomach. She crouches down until their profiles are level, presses close until she can feel the heavy stutter of Kara’s breath against her lips.

“Is Alex okay?”

Kara exhales a shaky laugh at Lena’s concern, pressing a quick, soggy kiss to her cheek. “Everyone is fine. I just—” she trails off, eyes fixating on a point above Lena’s head, carefully avoiding her eyes. “It was amateur work really, but they had a lot of heavy Alien machinery.” She gestures at her torn uniform, at the quickly-healing gash that mars her arm. She meets Lena’s eyes now, and Lena recognizes the veiled set of her mouth, the careful tilt of her brow.

Kara is hiding something.

“They threatened you,” Kara says finally, voice breaking high on the final syllable. She tilts closer to bury her face in Lena’s neck, “they threatened to hurt you.”

Lena sighs low, catching Kara’s face in her palms. “Oh baby,” she moves closer to pepper kisses over the bridge of Kara’s nose, across her high-cut cheekbones. “I’m safe, see?” she grabs for Kara’s hand, pressing their joined fingers against her chest until she knows Kara can feel the steady beat of her heart against her palm. “I’m okay.”

Kara nods slowly, looking more like herself now. “I was just scared, I guess.”

Lena laughs, abrupt and short, smirking when Kara looks up at her in confusion. “What? You were scared so you decided to ravage me?”

Kara laughs now too, red-blush creeping high in her cheeks. “I just wanted to be close to you.”

Lena hums low, feeling reflexive heat spike in her belly. “Well you only have to ask.”

Kara grins, tears all but dried now, and shifts her hand where it still rests against Lena’s chest, thumbing at the warm weight of her breast. “Is that so?”

“Kara Danvers,” Lena says, raising an eyebrow, pitching her voice high in faux surprise, “so forward.”

“Well,” Kara says, that smile still curling at her cheeks, “you aren’t wearing any pants.”

Lena laughs again. “And whose fault is that?” She pauses for a moment, studying Kara’s face. Below her bravado, tension still pulls her expression taught, purple smudges of exhaustion deepening the skin beneath her eyes. She looks bone-tired, chin sinking low against her chest, and Lena coaxes them both to their feet.

“As much as I want to continue,” she pauses to let the insinuation settle thick in the air between them, “I think you need some sleep.”

Kara look as though she briefly considers protesting, but thinks better of it at Lena’s expression. “Maybe just a little.”

Lena guides them toward the couch, nudging at Kara’s hips until she settles into the plush, leather fabric. “Rest here,” she says quietly, “I can call us a car later.” She eyes her desk, feeling a tug of arousal at the sight of her papers strewn on the floor, her skirt a haphazard pile on the cream colored carpet. “I have a few more things to finish up.”

Kara stretches into a recline, pillowing her head on one arm while the other reaches for Lena, her hand catching at her waist. She yawns before proffering her cheek for a kiss that Lena willingly delivers.

“Will you stay?” Kara says, words already slurring, eye-lids drooping closed, “just until I sleep?”

Lena nods carefully, her chest catching, sweet and breakable, that tender ache of affection too big to be contained between the cage of her ribs. “Always.”

“Promise?” Kara sighs, sounding remarkably young, lashes fluttering against her cheek as she struggles to stay awake.

Lena forgets all about the smothering shadow of tonight, of the lie Kara told, of the woman she didn’t recognize crouching before her on her office floor.

She sees only her Kara, battle-scarred and soft, and she nods.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always you can find me at nevervalentines.tumblr.com


End file.
